


The Foster Kid

by HandsintheStars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adopted Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Foster Care, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Minor Allura/Shiro (Voltron), Orphan Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Texan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2018-12-04 18:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 74,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11560677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsintheStars/pseuds/HandsintheStars
Summary: "The only good thing about being here is you"The new kid, Keith, is a foster kid who is cautious about everyone he meets. He knows he isn't staying with his foster family for long due to how much trouble he always causes, but there is this one boy in his class named Lance that makes him feel like he possibly has something he can call home. There are ups and downs to being a foster kid and Lance might just be his only up he'll ever experience.General: Graphic Klance sex scenes later on - Klance is main ship - Shiro as brotherly figure





	1. The Foster Kid

**THE FOSTER KID**

**CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

 

     “Keith are you sure you don’t want me to walk in with you?” Shiro asked, leaning forward to look out the passenger side window at Keith. 

Keith froze when he heard Shiro ask him that as if he was a kid going to school for the first time ever. His hands curled up into fists at his side and he turned around to him with a glare that only came across to Shiro as a pout, “I’m not a little kid.”

Shiro sighed, “It’s your first day at this new school; even I would want someone to walk me in if it were me going through this.”

Keith sighed, ignoring Shiro and turning back around. He looked at all of the kids walking into school early in the morning, happily talking to the people in their friend group as if they weren’t going into an eight hour school day full of sitting in boring classes and learning things that they would never use later in life. He lifted his right hand up to the strap of his backpack that was slung over one shoulder and tightened his grip around it. 

     “Pick me up at three,” he muttered out, walking away from the car without giving Shiro another look. 

He walked into the school, immediately overwhelmed by the even greater crowd of kids in the inside of the school than what was on the outside. His eyes were wide as he stood in the entry way, trying to take in the huge group of kids that were walking every which way all around him. It wasn’t his first time being in a public school, but it was just hard to be in a new crowd of people that he didn’t know no matter how many times he had been in that kind of situation as the new kid. 

He almost turned around and walked out of the school to ask Shiro to walk in with him, but pride stopped him from doing so. He looked down and muttered out the three steps that Shiro kept reminding him to do. 

     “Find the front office, ask for my schedule, get someone to show me to my classes,” he mumbled, looking up and trying to find the front office in the lobby area. 

He saw a large sign that labeled the front office and started to walk towards it, muttering out over and over again under his breath, “Ask for my schedule; get someone to show me to my classes. Ask for my schedule; get someone to show me to my classes. Ask for my-!”

     “Hi, how may I help you?” a woman at the front desk asked, making him snap out of his thoughts to look up at her. 

He looked at her for a few seconds, taking a moment to process what she asked before he replied to her, “Uh, I would like to ask for my schedule. And um… also someone to show to me to those classes if that is possible.”

     “Oh, you are a new student?” the woman asked, pulling a sheet of paper out of nowhere and placing it on the table for him. 

Keith stepped closer to the piece of paper, placing his hand on it as he looked at what was his new schedule for the next few months of the first semester of his junior year. He doubted he was going to be here for that long though. He looked up at the woman and nodded his head, “I’m Keith uh,” he looked down at the paper again, “Kogane…”. Of course he still had the same last name. Even though Shiro was finally taking care of him, it wasn't like he was adopted now. 

The woman wasn’t listening to him, working on something else and leaving him to awkwardly stand there to wait until she was done. She got on the phone and started to talk to someone, so he looked around the room and shifted his weight on his leg, waiting for her to finally turn her attention back to him. When she hung up, he looked to her and asked in a soft voice, “Should I just go to my first class now then?”

She looked up at him, “Oh no, sorry, I was calling for a student in your grade to show you around to your classes. He has the same lunch as you too, so you will meet him back here after the period before lunch and he will walk you down to where he normally sits and you can meet his friends there as well.”

     “Oh,” Keith muttered out, wondering why they had a system like that for the new kid to meet friends. He was used to just eating in the back of the cafeteria either completely alone or sitting with other kids that were outcasts. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of being placed into a random group and having to talk to them when he didn’t want to make friends and that group probably didn’t even want a new kid to join them. He only had two years left of high school; he could survive without friends. 

She offered him a seat to sit down in while he waited for his tour guide and new “buddy” to come to the office and show him around. It was an awkward ten minute wait of him getting on his phone every five seconds only to get off one second later each time because there was nothing to do on a blackberry phone. Shiro said he was going to get him a new phone, but he knew that was never going to happen. 

Keith looked up when the door swung open and a tan boy with light brown hair and blue eyes waltzed in. He looked tall from where Keith was sitting and when he passed by, Keith couldn’t help but glance up for a few seconds at his butt just out of curiosity. He looked back down again at his powered off phone as the boy greeted the woman at the front desk, “Hey, Mrs. Julia! Where is the new kid?”

Keith’s eyes widened. That kid was looking for him? That kid was a junior and not a senior? He could have passed for a college student if Keith hadn’t seen him in a high school setting. Keith was awestruck, completely forgetting that the normal thing to do in this moment would be to get up and introduce himself as the ‘new kid’ the boy was talking about. 

The front desk lady, whose name was now known as Mrs. Julia grabbed his attention by introducing Keith for him. She gestured her hand over to Keith, “This is Keith Shirogane. He is new and in your grade. Before you send him to his first class, make sure he knows the general layout of where he is supposed to go and answer all of his questions. Then before lunch, could you also meet him here and take him down to the cafeteria to sit with your group and meet them all?”

     “Of course,” the boy smiled, turning around to Keith and holding out his hand. “I’m Lance McClain; it is a pleasure to meet you!”

Keith looked at his hand for a second, wary of shaking his hand for a moment before finally making the decision to take his hand and shake it. He only held Lance’s hand for a moment though before jerking it away to put it back in his jacket pocket. He stuttered out his reply as he looked around the room for the hundredth time this morning, “Nice to meet you too.”

The awkward silence that would have lasted a lifetime didn’t last long because Mrs. Julia thankfully sensed the silent moment coming and filled it up with, “Lance is our best student ambassador in the junior class, so you are in great hands. He will make sure you feel right at home here at our high school.”

Lance laughed with a light blush on his cheeks from embarrassment, “I’ll try my best, Mrs. Julia. Well I’ll see you before lunch when I come back to meet Keith!”

     “Alright,” she smiled, waving at them as Lance led Keith out of the front office and on the route to his first class. 

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Lance finally asked Keith, “So we are one month into the school year, did you move or something or did you come from a private school?”

Keith shook his head and shrugged, shifting his backpack strap a little more onto his shoulder out of anxiousness as he answered, “I moved, I guess.”

     “You guess?” Lance asked with one eyebrow raised and a smile still on his face. 

Keith looked up at Lance, trying to look him in the eye as he spoke but failing miserably and looking back down only a few seconds later. He stared at the floor as they kept walking on, “I’m with a new foster family.”

There was a silence. A silence that Keith always dreaded when he told people that he was in foster care or he was an orphan. He knew that Lance was definitely feeling pity for him right now, which wasn’t a surprise, but he hated that now he was probably going to be known as the orphan at his new school. Maybe he should have stayed quiet about it and lied to Lance about how he was coming here late in the semester because he moved counties or something.

     “Do you like your new family?” Lance asked, sounding unsure if his question was appropriate to ask or not but going through with it anyways. 

Keith nodded his head, “It’s not really a family. It’s just…” he sighed, realizing that Lance was just asking him questions to make him feel comfortable and didn’t really care anything about his life. He tilted his head a bit and cut his answer short, “I don’t know yet.”

Lance turned to him with a worried look on his face, “How long have you stayed with them?”

     “Two weeks,” Keith looked to Lance. “They are nice.”

Lance nodded his head and kept walking until they reached the end of the hall to a door with a sign on the top of it that said ‘Mr. Sanchez’. Lance stopped and placed his hands on his hips, saying with a grin on his face, “You are one very lucky guy to have Mr. Sanchez as your Spanish 3 teacher. He is an easy A and I should know, because my friends have them and are passing without even knowing the basic preterites.”

Keith groaned, looking at the classroom from a spot where the class couldn’t see him but he could see the class. He muttered out with a frown on his face, “I hate Spanish.”

     “It’s my favorite class,” Lance smiled, starting to walk in the other direction away from the classroom, Keith following him happily to get away from what was going to be his least favorite class ever. 

     “How?” Keith asked, only knowing Spanish class as a class from Hell, though all of his classes were pretty much like that since he was more behind than everyone else thanks to moving around a lot.

Lance grinned and answered him, “My family is Cuban, so I speak it fluently.”

    “Oh…” Keith muttered out, looking down. “Sorry I talked about Spanish like that.”

Lance laughed, “Nah, Spanish class sucks. But hey, if you are having a hard time, I can always help you out. I’m free after practice every day if you want to meet up, but I’m sure Mr. Sanchez won’t give you a hard time since you are new.”

For the next twenty minutes, Lance showed Keith around the school, showing him to all of his classes and telling him as much as he knew about the teachers he had for each class. Keith was barely retaining any of the information Lance was telling him, both because it was just too much for him to process all at once and because he kept zoning out when staring at Lance as he talked. 

When Lance finally led him back to his first class, he patted Keith on the shoulder, surprising Keith and causing Keith to flinch and move away. Keith’s eyes widened when he realized what he did and he quickly straightened up, trying to distract Lance from what just happened by saying, “So we are meeting at the front office before lunch?”

Lance looked down at Keith with a surprised and worried look on his face. It took him a moment to process what Keith said before he shook his head out of his trance and nodded his head, saying, “Yeah, uh, we will. I’m going to tell my friends about you too, so they can go ahead and get your lunch so you don’t have to worry about it. Since it is your first day, it’s on us.”

     “You really don’t have to do that,” Keith started to say, but was interrupted by Lance saying, “We do! How else can we make this the best first day of school for you?”

Keith looked down, not wanting to argue with him and no exactly wanting to turn his offer down. Shiro had given him lunch money, but if he was given the chance to not have to pay for his lunch, he was going to take it. He might as well take the free meal before he was alone for the rest of his high school career.

Lance opened the door to Mr. Sanchez’s room and walked in as if everyone thought of him visiting their classroom was a blessing. No one really reacted to him like that though. He sang out to Mr. Sanchez, “I have arrived with a new student! His name is Keith and he is in your class now.”

     “Oh?” Mr. Sanchez asked, looking over to Keith who was still in the doorway, looking down, afraid to look at the rest of the classroom. 

Mr. Sanchez looked back at Lance with a questioning look, but Lance just smiled and said, “I’m leaving him with you. Go easy on him though, he said that he hates Spanish.”

     “He did?” Mr. Sanchez gasped, looking up at Keith. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he glared at Lance, “Why would you tell him I said that?”

Lance grinned and shrugged, “It’s an icebreaker! What do you prefer, pizza or pasta?”

     “Pizza?” Keith questioned and answered at the same time, crossing his arms and leaning against the door. 

     “Great!” Lance grinned, walking past him to leave. “See you later, Keith!”

Keith looked at Mr. Sanchez, afraid that he was going to give him Hell now that he knew he hated Spanish. Why would Lance do something like that? Keith flinched when Mr. Sanchez said in his naturally loud voice, “Well Keith, now that I know you hate Spanish, I am going to have to try to convince you otherwise by the end of this year, alright?”

Keith tilted his head in confusion. The teacher wasn’t mad at him? Of course, he couldn’t get mad because he was a teacher, so that made sense. He just faked a smile and nodded at Mr. Sanchez instead of actually talking to him before finding a seat in the back to spend the rest of class in. 

The rest of the first half of the school day went by pretty much how Keith expected: slow and crappy. He had been to too many new schools to be surprised about it. He was just glad that this was the first time he wasn't going to have to pay for lunch on his first day of school. That actually came as a surprise to him. 

When his third period class was over, Keith walked over to the office, half-expecting Lance to bail on him since he wasn’t exactly a pleasant personality to be around but half-hoping that Lance was different from other kids and would give him a chance. When he walked into the office, he was surprised to see Lance standing around waiting for him with a smile still on his face. 

Their eyes met and Keith looked down at the ground as Lance said, “Hey, there is the star of the day! How was your first few classes?”

     “Not terrible,” Keith lied, not wanting to sound too gloomy as they walked outside of the office. 

Lance laughed and leaned in close to Keith to say, “You don’t have to sugar coat it. School sucks, but friends are what make it better, and I am about to show you the best group of friends you could possibly have.”

Keith followed Lance down to the cafeteria, afraid that this obviously popular guy was going to sit him down with a huge group of kids that were going to bombard him with questions. He made an escape plan to go to the restroom and hide if that was the case, but he was going to see for himself what the group was like before he did anything. He knew Shiro was going to ask him about this when he got home from school, so he might as well know what the group looked like when he described it to Shiro later and told him how he was already popular with everyone. 

When Lance brought him to his groups’ table, Keith thought he was staring at the wrong table. He looked at the two people that were at the table and turned back to Lance, asking, “You aren’t popular?”

Lance’s jaw immediately dropped as he was at a loss for words. His two friends started laughing loudly, having heard what Keith said. The shorter one, which was a girl wearing a t-shirt and tan shorts, said, “Ha! The new kid is already my favorite!”

     “This is technically a diss on us, but I’m going to try to find a way to think about it as only a burn on Lance,” the fatter one said, taking a bite of his pizza. 

Keith turned to them and stuttered out a quick, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it that way!”

     “It’s fine,” the girl grinned. “I’m just surprised you ever thought that Lance was popular.”

Lance sighed and sat down across from the girl, patting the seat next to him across from the big guy for Keith to sit down in, “These are my two best friends, Hunk and Katie. The rest of our friend group is in either lunch A or C so sadly we are the lonely trio.”

     “But hey, now we have a fourth member, so we look less sad at our table,” Hunk added, handing Keith a plate with a slice of pizza on it. “You aren’t allowed to leave us now.”

Keith took the pizza and started to eat it, hungry since he rushed out the door without eating breakfast earlier that morning, “I have no where else to go, so I guess I’ll stay.”

     “That’s the spirit!” Lance grinned, reaching over to touch Keith on the shoulder only to remember his reaction from earlier and put his hand back down. He wasn’t sure why Keith reacted like that, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Keith had gone through Hell in foster care, dealing with some families that only took him in for money or dealing with his own family that landed him in foster care. He was just going to have to tell Hunk and Pidge to be careful as well. 

Lance’s friend group was surprisingly more comfortable to be around than Keith expected, and he actually didn’t regret not running off to go to the restroom. By the end of lunch, Lance had added his number to the table group chat now consisting of him, Lance, Katie, and Hunk. Keith of course didn’t let the three of them know this, but they were the first numbers in his phone now besides Shiro and his wife Allura. 

When the bell to end lunch rang, Keith left the group and started to walk on his own to class until Lance caught up to him and said, “Hey, so I forgot to tell you this, but we have the next two classes together; English and History. You don’t hate those two classes too, do you?”

Keith shook his head, “Are you going to tell the teacher if I say yes?”

Lance laughed, “I’m sorry about that! Sometimes I talk to much. Actually, all the time I talk too much, but you’ll come to learn that soon enough.’

     “I think I’ve already learned that,” Keith said, glancing at Lance after he said to make sure what he said wasn’t too offensive. Lance looked fine though, laughing as if what Keith said was actually funny. 

The next two classes that Keith had with Lance were actually not as terrible as they would have been to Keith without him. Lance introduced him to everyone he knew in those two classes and talked him up like he was the next big thing at their school even though he barely even knew Keith and it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t. 

He was also lucky enough to be able to sit next to Lance in both classes, getting to hear every side comment Lance made when the teacher said something boring or stupid during their lecture. It made the two hours feel like thirty minutes since Keith was having more fun than he expected with Lance next to him. 

And after that, all Keith had was study hall, which he used to sleep in the back of the library until the last school bell rang. Keith had gotten a text from Shiro to meet him outside because he was there to pick him up, so he hurried outside so Shiro wouldn’t be waiting on him for too long. In a record breaking time of two minutes, Keith ran outside and got into Shiro’s car to immediately be asked the question he knew he would be asked when he saw Shiro again after his first day of his new school. 

     “How was your first day?” Shiro asked, stuck in a carpool line to get out of the school parking lot already. 

Keith gave Shiro a look, biting his lip as he asked, “You want my honest answer?”

Shiro glanced at Keith for a moment before cutting his eyes back to the slow moving line in front of him and saying, “You are allowed to sugar coat it.”

Keith sighed, “It wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

     “Hey that’s good!” Shiro exclaimed, looking to Keith. “See? I told you, you were going to love it here in New Mexico. Isn’t it a lot better than Texas?”

     “Not really,” Keith muttered out, looking out the window at the outside entrance of Cleveland High School. He turned back to Shiro and asked, “What exactly was it about New Mexico that made you think gee, I want to live there? I mean, nothing is here.”

     “Allura was,” Shiro answered, slumping back a bit in his chair. “Look, I know this is a big change, but I think it will be good for you to get out of Texas. We both went through a lot back in that place and you need a change of scenery. A change of scenery honestly helped me so much after I got out of the foster care system.”

Keith crossed his arms, “And you abandoned me.”

     “I didn’t abandon you,” Shiro said in a low tone. “I had no choice, but I was able to get my life together and turn around to get you out of there and now we are here today. We are living together again just as we planned all those years ago. Aren't you excited?”

Keith didn’t respond, only staring out the window in a huff since he had nothing else to say in response to Shiro. The rest of the car ride home was silent as well, them having had nothing to say to each other since Keith had moved in with them two weeks ago. 

They walked inside the house to Allura on the phone with someone from her business, immediately disinteresting Keith to the idea of sticking around and ‘chatting with them’. She looked up from her call and smiled at the two of them, waving hello. Keith looked to Shiro just in time to watch him turn red and smile as he waved back at Allura. Keith rolled his eyes and walked upstairs to his room, locking the door behind him so he wouldn’t have any more interruptions until tomorrow morning when he had to wake up to go to another day of Hell. 

He gave Shiro one more month before he decided that dealing with him was too much work and he needed to go back into the system. 


	2. The Lost Kid

**_FOSTER KID_ **

**_CHAPTER TWO_ **

****Warning:

     There will be mentions of past and present self harm in this chapter. There will be no descriptions of it, just a confrontation, but I just wanted to warn the readers anyway just in case! 

     Safe Reading! :)

* * *

 

     “So you are from Texas?” Lance asked, laying his head down on the table and staring up at Keith. 

Keith nodded his head. 

     “But you don’t have an accent,” Lance stated. 

Keith nodded his head again. 

     “Have you ever said howdy?” Lance asked, giggling a little as he asked the question. 

Keith took a bite of his pizza and shook his head, “No.”

Lance sat up straight at the table and turned to Keith with his whole body to ask, “Hey do we have an accent here in New Mexico?”

     “You do, but Hunk and Katie don’t,” Keith answered. “You probably have it because of your family being Cuban though.”

     “Awe that is the first time you called be Cuban instead of Spanish,” Lance grinned. He turned to Hunk and Katie with a grin on his face that Keith didn’t know the meaning too. They looked up at him with a confused look as he asked, “Why don’t you two have accents?”

Hunk sighed, “We aren’t from here, I guess. My parents are from Hawaii.”

     “I’m from New York,” Katie added. 

Lance slapped his hand on the table, “Is anyone from New Mexico actually from New Mexico?” He turned to Keith, “Is it the same way in Texas?” 

Keith shrugged, “Everyone is pretty much born with a cowboy hat and their own horse.”

     “You had your own horse?” Lance asked, eyes widening in awe. 

Keith froze for a moment, wondering if Lance was being serious or not. Not really sure if he was joking, Keith still just shook his head and said as he looked down at his hands, “I didn’t even have my own parents.”

It had been a week since Keith had started his new school, and he was already sick of everything there. He wasn’t surprised he was saying this, but he wanted to go back to the orphanage. He hated being at school and he hated being at home with Shiro and Allura no matter how much they tried to make him feel like he belonged there. There was nothing he enjoyed about this place or New Mexico as a whole. There was nothing he enjoyed back at the orphanage, but at least he was familiar with the things he hated there. 

Lance leaned his head on his hand and said, “Don’t you still have parents though? I thought foster kids still have their parents but just don’t live with them.”

Katie and Hunk looked up at Keith and then to Lance, glaring at him with eyes that screamed out the fact that he was talking about something that Keith was definitely not comfortable to talk about. 

Lance realized a little too late that Keith wasn’t exactly too happy with what he said as Keith stood up and muttered out the words, “I’m going to the bathroom.”

He started to leave, taking his backpack with him out of habit, but Lance held him back by his backpack, saying, “You can leave your bag here. Lunch doesn’t end for another fifteen minutes.”

Keith stared at him for a little too long in response, trying to think up a lie on why he needed to take his backpack with him. Still unable to think of an answer another half minute later, he looked back at the bathroom and started to walk there again, deciding not to say anything at all in response. He hated how awkward he was, but he knew he wasn’t going to stay here long. Allura obviously didn’t like him and Shiro was going to listen to Allura in the end when it came down to keeping him or not. He was like a dog, but worse, since he couldn’t win the hearts of his new family with cuteness or personality. He was more like a cat in a new family where one of the family members realizes a little too late that they actually have cat allergies. 

When he got into the bathroom, he locked himself in the biggest stall, deciding to make that his home for the next fifteen minutes of lunch time. He sat on the toilet seat and leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes to nap until the bell rang and eventually woke him up. Instead of waking up as planned though, Keith slept right through the bell and only woke up on his own during the second class he would normally go to after lunch. 

Keith’s eyes widened when he walked into the hallway and saw no one around. He knew he had overslept by maybe five minutes, but did he seriously sleep through the rest of the school day? Was he locked into the school? His mind went into full panic mode as he ran to the front door to try to open it to see if he was locked in our not. 

When he ran to the front door, he looked out the window to see the sky was still bright and there were still a lot of cars in the parking lot. Keith looked at the front desk to see that the woman still in her usual spot. What time was it? What period was going on right now? If he walked out, would anyone notice? No one ever noticed him, so he wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to get off school property easily. 

Keith clenched his hands into fists at his sides and took a deep breath before turning back to the door and contemplating whether he should just leave or not. He didn't want to be caught if he walked out. He would get in a lot of trouble and probably make Shiro regret his decision of ever taking him in, but at the same time, he wanted to be caught. He wanted to feel like maybe people could see him and he wasn't as invisible as he thought he was. He closed his eyes and held his breath, reaching his hand towards the door and opening it. Without one more second of hesitation, he walked out, not looking back once as he made his way off the school property with no problem at all. Of course that was what he expected. 

Keith walked for about thirty minutes before stumbling upon a shopping center that looked empty enough to stay in until it was three and Shiro picked him up from school. Keith didn’t even want to go home though. He just wanted to stay alone until he was eighteen and then he could choose how he lived his life instead of having a whole system choose it for him.

He walked into a coffee shop that wasn’t a chain coffee shop and seemed quiet enough for him to rest in until it was three, which was one and a half hours from now. He sat down on one of the sofas and took out his phone to play one of the games his phone came with, which happened to be pac-man. He had no one else to text, so this was going to have to entertain him for the time being. 

His phone managed to do the trick for only an hour though before it died, leaving him completely alone in the dark at least electronically. It was time to head back to school anyway and he would just wait in the parking lot until kids started coming out. When he walked out into the parking lot of the coffee shop, he looked around for the way he came in, only to realize that he wasn’t even paying attention to the way he got there. Where did he even come from? 

Keith looked right and left, trying to make a decision of where to guess he came from and eventually deciding to go right. If he was wrong, he could just walk back and try the other way. As Keith walked along the sidewalk of the path he chose, he couldn’t decided whether or not it was the correct. There were just trees on both sides of the path, so he couldn’t recognize anything that would tell him he was going the right or wrong way. 

He kept walking for the next hour until he realized he had been walking too long and was definitely going the wrong way. He froze in his tracks and turned around to look in the other direction. Shiro had definitely realized that he was not at school by now, it having been probably a half hour since school had let out. Should he just walk until he stumbled across his neighborhood? He was already walking in that direction right? If not, he would find someone eventually and ask them for directions. 

Keith kept walking in, making his most educated guesses on which turns to take and which shortcuts to take through the woods when he saw buildings through trees. None of which ended up being correct, but he kept walking in hopes of eventually finding something he could recognize. By the time Keith actually ran into people that looked his age, night had already fallen and it was pitch black outside. 

His hands were shaking and his eyes were straining not to cry out of frustration of not being able to find his way around the town. Was he seriously that stupid to not know where Shiro’s house was after having stayed there for the past three weeks? 

He walked up to the group of teens, making them aware of his presence by clearing his throat and saying in a quiet tone that was barely loud enough to hear, “Do any of you know where Cleveland High School is? I-I got lost and I’m just trying to find my way there so I can find my way home.”

The guys looked at one another, laughing together as one of them asked in a raspy tone, “You’re a high school student and you can’t even find your way home?”

     “I’m new,” Keith looked down. “If you guys don’t know, then I’ll be on my way.”

     “No, no,” one of them said, stepping closer to him and brushing his hair back behind his ear. “Hang out with us for a bit and then we’ll tell you where to go. We might even give you a ride.”

Keith shook his head and stepped back away from him, “I’ll just retrace my steps… Thank you though.”

The guy grabbed his hand and pulled him back, starting to speak, but was interrupted by Keith scratching him in the face out of fear. Keith was breathing heavily already, snatching back his hand from the guy and starting to step back again. He muttered out an apology and was about to turn around to run before the guy in front of him stepped forward with one big step and swung his fist at him, punching him in the face and causing him to fall to the ground. 

His cheek hurt and the concrete on the rough street scraped the skin on his cheek when he fell down on his side. He flipped over on his back, starting to get up again when the guy in front of him slammed his boot down on his stomach, preventing him from getting up as he shouted out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, asking for directions and then scratching my face when I offer to help you? Boys, let’s teach him a lesson.”

     “No!” Keith shouted out, grabbing the guy’s leg and trying to get out from under him before he got beaten up by the group of men. 

He was weak against them though. He was held down by two of them as the others kicked him and punched him as hard as they could everywhere except for his face. It seemed like his face was being saved for the leader of the group who soon lifted up his head by his hair and slammed it back down on the concrete, causing a migraine to rush through his head immediately. 

Keith screamed out for Shiro to save him, but he knew the moment he called out for him that Shiro was in no range to be able to hear him. He had to save himself like he always did. He fought the guys off of him, kicking and punching until he had a window to get up and run away. 

Once he did, he ran for his life away from the group of guys, not caring about the direction this time. They chased after him, shouting out names and profanities in his direction as they followed him down narrow pathways and through the woods, him trying to desperately lose them even though he was getting more lost himself. 

Eventually, he ran into the back of a neighborhood and jumped over the first fence that was low enough for him to get over and hid in the yard. He stayed in the corner of the yard, holding his hand over his mouth as he listened for the sound of the group running getting farther and farther away from him. 

Even after the sounds of the group were long gone, Keith wanted to cry. He wanted to punch every person in the world, he wanted to burn down every building, and he wanted to never go back to Shiro’s house or back to school or even see tomorrow. He just wanted to end this shitty life of his, because he knew it was never going to get better. 

Keith started to get up, knowing that life was only going to get worse for him if he got the police called on him for trespassing. As soon as he stood up though, a dog came running at him at full force, barking loudly and scaring him into retreating back into his curled up position in the corner. He hid his head in hands and waited for the dog to stop barking at him until he heard a man call out, “Hey, Rex, calm down,” the man looked to Keith. “What are you doing in my backyard?”

     “I’m sorry, sir, I just got lost and I was chased by a group of guys and I have no idea where I am now,” Keith mumbled on, standing up, thankful that this guy wasn’t already sicking his dog on him. 

Keith started to walk towards the man and his now silent dog until he caught sight of what the man was wearing. He was wearing a police uniform. Keith froze where he was and stepped back a bit, looking down. His lips were trembling as he asked him, “Can I please leave? I’ll walk home, I promise I won’t give you any trouble.”

The man gave him a strange look, looking down at his watch before glancing back up at Keith and saying, “It is almost one am and well past curfew for kids your age on a Friday. Get in here and let me call your parents.”

Keith shook his head, “I’m going to leave.” 

He got up and tried to make his way to the front of the yard through the slim area between the side fence and the side of the house, but the man managed to catch him and grab his arm before he could take even ten steps. Keith’s eyes widened and he turned around the punch the man away from him, but the man took his other arm and held him stiffly in a position in front of him. 

     “I don’t want to hurt you; I’m a police officer, alright? How about we go inside and call your parents,” the man tried to reason with Keith, but Keith let his head fall back and started crying, begging him to let him go. 

He shook his head and let his whole body collapse, his body capable of falling to the ground if the man hadn’t been holding him up. He was definitely having a panic attack or if not a panic attack then something very close to it. His chest was heaving up and down as shallow breaths tried desperately to escape his mouth. 

     “Please don’t hurt me,” Keith kept mumbling, looking every which way for a route to escape to, but his body wouldn’t move no matter how hard he tried. 

The man finally let go of his wrists, wrapping his arm around his back and his other arm on his chest to keep him upright as he yelled to the house, “Maria! Get out here and help me please!”

Keith looked up at the house to see a woman in her pajamas run down the stairs to them, saying, “What is going on?  Samuel, ¿estás bien?” 

The man nodded his head and handed Keith over to Maria, saying, “The kid is scared and lost and he is scared of me for some reason, so can you just talk to him. Try to find out his parents’ phone number.”

Maria nodded her head and placed a hand on Keith shoulder, noticing how he flinched and cringed at her touch. She kept her hand on his shoulder though, walking him inside as she asked, “How old are you? Do you go to Cleveland High School?”

Keith nodded his head slowly, starting to calm down now that Samuel was gone. He sniffled and followed her into the house, stuttering out, “I’m s-sixteen and my name is Keith. I don’t know where I live and my phone died, so I couldn’t contact Shiro.”

     “What kind of phone do you have?” Maria asked, sitting Keith down on the couch. “We could charge it for you and you could call someone to pick you up and bring you back home?”

     “I have a blackberry phone…” Keith replied, knowing that they definitely did not have a charger for an old phone like his. 

It showed in Maria’s face as she bit her lip and asked, “Did you just move here? Is that why you don’t know where you live?”

Keith nodded his head, not wanting to get into the fact that he was a foster kid with no attachment to anything here. He looked down and said, “I can just try to find my way home from here…”

     “No, definitely not,” Maria gasped, standing up. “You are staying here for the night if we can’t get in touch with your parents. Samuel is checking right now with the station to see if anyone filed a report for a missing child this evening, so we will have your parents come pick you up as soon as he gets more information on that.” 

Keith nodded his head, still looking down at the ground as he sat down on the couch in the living room, “I don’t want to stay here though. I’ll be trouble.”

     “You won’t be,” Maria assured him. “And are you alright if I disinfect that scratch on your face? It looks like you were beaten up pretty badly,” her eyes widened, “Is the person that hurt you like this in your family?”

Keith’s eyes widened and he shook his head, “I was attacked by a group of guys on the other side of the woods outside of your neighborhood…”

As soon as he said that he heard someone on the stairs and snapped his head up to see the dark figure of a tall boy in the stairway, staring at them as he slowly walked down the stairs and asked, “Mamá, ¿qué está pasando?” 

Maria turned around and called out to the boy, “Nada, cariño, vuelve a la cama.”

Keith looked down, unable to understand the Spanish being spoken between them until the boy called out his name. Keith looked up as the boy walked into the room and asked again, “Keith, what are you doing here?”

     “You know him?” Maria asked, looking to the boy that Keith now recognized as Lance from school. 

Maria looked to Keith again and then back up to Lance before nodding and stepping back, saying, “I’ll go get alcohol and bandages. Trate de hablar con él y calmarlo.”

Lance nodded his head and sat down on the couch, peering at Keith’s face and asking, “What happened to you? Where did you go during lunch and the rest of the day?”

Keith’s hands were shaking. He was tired, he wanted to sleep, he didn’t want to talk about his terrible day, and he didn’t want to go home. He just wanted to disappear. Keith clenched his hand and looked up at Lance, replying to him, “I left. I left and then when I tried to go back to school to be picked up, I got lost and ended up here.”

     “Dang, you are really bad at directions,” Lance laughed a little, trying to lighten up the mood a bit, but he only made it worse, causing Keith to clench up as the last of his pride he didn’t even know he had left disappeared. 

Lance’s eyes widened and he quickly placed his hands out in front of Keith, saying, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way! I’m bad at directions too. I would be all the way in North Dakota right now  if my parents asked me to walk home or something like that, so don’t worry!”

     “Really?” Keith asked, eyes straining for a reason to believe that maybe he wasn’t such a loser that he was expected to be. 

     “Really, really,” Lance nodded his head, smiling. 

He patted the spot next to him on the couch and asked Keith, “Would you mind sitting closer to me? It’s hard to see you in the dark. By the way, I’m sorry my dad frightened you. I heard from my room that he was pretty scary.”

Keith sat closer to Lance and shook his head, muttering out a long string of words melted together as his answer, “He wasn’t scary, I just don’t like police officers. Shiro is a police officer and even though I know him, I can’t stand being in the same room as him with his uniform on.”

     “Oh is there a reason for that?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow to let Keith know he wanted to know the reason. 

Sadly, Keith didn’t catch on to Lance’s desperate gesture for an answer, so he just nodded his head and didn’t give any further information to Lance since he didn’t feel comfortable enough to do that. Lance didn’t exactly have time to think about what exactly made Keith freak out at the sight of a police uniform, because as soon as he thought about it, his eyes widened and he jumped up to go to his father, yelling out to him once he saw him, “Hey, Keith’s foster dad is a police officer here if that helps you out in some way!” Lance turned around to Keith and asked, “Do you know his full name?”

Keith thought for a moment and then looked up to answer Lance, unsure of himself though, “Uh, Takashi Shirogane is his full name? He transferred here.”

Lance nodded his head and turned back to his father, “He transferred here. His name is Takashi Shirogane.”

His father’s eyes widened and he said, “Oh, the new guy! I have his number, because he is part of one of our group chats. I’ll call him and Lance, go back to bed.”

     “What?” Lance whined. “I’m staying up! Keith is my friend and it’s lame to go to bed with friends over!”

Keith looked down, “Actually, is it ok if I fall asleep right here until Shiro comes to get me?”

Maria walked in and set the bandages and alcohol down on the table, “After I take care of your cuts on your face, you can fall asleep.” She looked up at Lance, “When Keith goes to sleep, will you finally go to bed?” She turned back to Keith, “I promise, he isn’t normally like this. He is usually well behaved.”

     “Mama,” Lance warned and whined at the same time, pouting. 

Maria sighed, “I’m happy you two are friends though. Maybe you can help Lance stay in line when I’m not there to boss him around, huh?”

     “Keith can’t boss me around if he’s only known me around one week,” Lance pouted. “He has to know me for at least two weeks.”

Keith smiled a little, looking down as Maria treated his minor scrape injuries from the gang of guys that chased him. When she was done, he layed his head back on the couch with a smile on his face and said, “Thank you… I’m really glad I fell into your yard, because I’m pretty sure another family finding me lurking around back there would not have brought me in and helped me like this.”

     “It is not a problem,” Maria smiled, “I’m just glad you are happy now compared to how we found you.”

Lance looked up at his mom, wondering how exactly they found Keith. Lance looked back at Keith to see him starting to doze off already, understandibly extremely tired from the long day he had. Samuel, Lance’s father, walked in at that moment, holding up his phone as he announced, “Takashi is on his way to pick Keith up.”

He was immediately shushed by Maria and Lance who looked at him with harsh faces as they pointed to sleeping Keith. His eyes widened and he nodded his head, placing a finger over his lips as well before disappearing to go change out of his uniform. Maria smiled and got up as well to follow her husband, stopping before leaving only to say to Lance, “Tell me more about this boy after he leaves.”

     “Ok, mama,” Lance nodded his head, staying on the couch with Keith. 

Ten minutes later, he and Keith were asleep, resting their heads on each other as their bodies were slumped against one another. It was twenty minutes later when Samuel had to wake them up, telling Lance that he should make his way to bed and telling Keith that Shiro had arrived to pick him up. 

Shiro was waiting outside, face full of worry as Keith groggily walked outside to him with Samuel by his side. Shiro ran up to Keith and hugged him tightly saying, “I’m so glad you’re safe…”

He looked up to Samuel and said, “Thank you so much for taking care of him. I promise this won’t happen again.”

Samuel laughed a little and smiled as he replied, “You can’t promise anything with teens. I have a few teens myself, so I understand.”

     “I’ll be in the car,” Keith said, pulling away from Shiro to get into the passenger side of the car. He turned to Samuel before he closed the door and said, “Thank you… for helping me. Tell Lance’s mom thank you too.”

He then closed the door to the car and sat and waited for Shiro to get in and yell at him. Shiro had never yelled at him before, but this time was definitely worthy of it if he was ever going to get yelled at by Shiro at some point. Keith almost dozed off again by the time Shiro finally got into the car, turning the car on and driving away from the house as soon as he could. 

When they got out onto the road away from the neighborhood, Shiro finally spoke, “Keith, if you are going to be living with us, I want you to at least tell me what is going on with you to make you skip school? Are kids being mean to you? Is it something I’m doing?”

     “What?” Keith asked, furrowing his brows in anger that Shiro was asking him questions like this and also blamed himself. “No. You aren’t doing anything wrong and the kids are fine. You saw I had a friend, because that was my friend’s house.”

Shiro was silent for a moment, both hands on the stirring wheel and eyes on the road as he muttered out, “I didn’t know that actually.”

     “Well now you do,” Keith answered, crossing his arms and looking out the window. 

Shiro sighed, “Keith, what is wrong then to make you leave school early? You know how worried I was about you? I got a call from the school that you had missed three classes, and I thought that maybe you were just trying to be daring, but then when you were missing until one am at night, I thought that-!”

     “You thought that what?” Keith asked, rolling his eyes. “Shiro, I have nowhere to go.”

     “I thought you were hurt or dead or- or killed yourself! I don’t know!” Shiro burst out frustratedly. 

Keith turned to look at Shiro, “Why would I kill myself?”

     “I honestly can’t answer that, but that was one of my fears…” Shiro said, looking to Keith out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve seen the scars on your arms. I tried to stay quiet about them, because I thought that maybe that was only a previous problem you had and that now you were living with me, it was going to go away, but I keep watching as more and more scars keep appearing on your arm, Keith. I’m afraid one day you are going to take it too far and I won’t be lucky this time to have Mr. Mcclain call me and tell me you are at his house!”

Keith’s eyes were wide with fear when he realized that Shiro knew about him cutting himself. He thought he hid it well, but if Shiro noticed, who else could have noticed? Did Lance notice? Keith shook his head, he shouldn’t care about Lance right now. It was stupid for him to even think that. 

He pulled his sleeves down past his wrists, now self-conscious, and said, “I won’t kill myself.”

     “I hope you won’t,” Shiro said, turning to Keith. “I really hope you don’t. I love you, Keith. You have been a brother to me since you were placed in Foster care and since then, I never stopped thinking about how I was going to get you out of there.”

Shiro pulled into the driveway, “I just hope it’s not too late…”

     “Too late for what?” Keith’s eyes widened and he looked to Shiro with a glare. “Too late for me to be some psychotic kid thanks to foster care? You are seriously not sure if I’m stable or not?”

     “Keith I didn’t say that-!”

Keith opened the door to get out, “Of course you didn’t say that! I had to say that for you! If you and Allura are so afraid of me killing myself or you two then why don’t you just put me back in the system? You didn’t adopt me yet for a reason, right? It’s never too late to get rid of the crazy kid you never wanted!”

Shiro got out of the car and ran after Keith, “Keith come back here!  I’m not going to take you back!”

Keith ran into the house to see Allura standing in the kitchen, looking at him worriedly. She tilted her head and asked, “Are you ok? What happened to you? Do you want anything to eat? You must be hungry.”

She stared at Keith for a moment, expecting an answer until all she got in response was a glare coming from him. He stared at her with a look of hatred before he ran upstairs to his room before Shiro could get a hold of him. 

Allura looked to Shiro with a confused look on her face, “What happened?”

He shook his head and chased after Keith, banging on Keith’s bedroom door once he ran to it and found it locked, “Keith please open up! We can talk about this, ok? Please, just don’t do anything you might regret. I promise I would never send you back there! Keith… please open the door.”

Keith was on the other side of the door, back pressed up against it just in case Shiro picked the lock and tried to come in that way. He knew Shiro long enough to know that that was one of his special skills. Keith wiped his eyes with his sleeve and sniffled out a muffled response, “I’m not going to kill myself…”

He heard Shiro let out a sigh of relief and say, “That is good… Let me in Keith. We can talk.”

     “I don’t want to,” Keith replied softly. “Not tonight.”

     “Tomorrow?” Shiro asked, pressing his forehead against the door. 

Keith nodded his head, lips trembling as his whole face ached to let him cry. He nodded his head and replied to Shiro, “Tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!


	3. The Mysterious Kid

**THE FOSTER KID**

**CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

 

It was nine in the morning when Keith got his third phone call from Lance. He was planning on ignoring it again until it started to ring for a fourth time. Keith let out a growl of frustration and sat up in bed, picking up the phone and bringing it up to his ear quickly as he answered it, “What do you want, Lance?”

     “Oh is now a bad time?” Lance asked on the other end. 

Keith rolled his eyes, knowing that Lance didn’t care even if it was a bad time. He didn’t even know Lance that well, but he could just tell that he was that kind of person. Keith laid back in bed and replied to him, “I thought you would get the memo if I didn’t answer, but you didn’t so, what do you want?”

     “Do you want to hang out today?”

     “No,” Keith responded, starting to take the phone away from his ear until he heard Lance say, “You didn’t even hear what I have planned! I was wondering if you want to go to my top secret hide out in the woods with me and my dog, Rex.”

     “I don’t like dogs,” Keith replied, still interested though in the hideout. 

He was never invited to a hideout, nor did he really have friends that had one. He saw a movie once where the kids had a hideout and he had always wanted to see one in real life. He couldn’t go if that scary dog was going though. 

When Lance said, “Fine, Rex is not allowed to come with us today,” Keith felt a wave of relief flush over him that he didn’t expect to happen. 

His eyes widened and he sat up, “You would uninvite your dog for me?”

     “He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out. My hideout is his favorite place to go on the weekends,” Lance sighed, grinning on the other end of the line at Keith’s new enthusiasm to go with him to his hideout in the woods. He laid down on his bed, “But he can survive. I really want to show it to you! When can I pick you up?”

     “Pick me up?” Keith asked, looking at the clock. “You can drive?”

Lance grinned, “I just got my license a month ago, so yeah. Can I pick you up in thirty minutes? You will have to give me your address though, so try to find that out in the next five minutes.”

     “Next five minutes?” Keith asked, jumping out of bed. “I don’t even know what this town is called!”

Lance groaned, “Well walk to the sign at the front of your neighborhood and then text me what it says. Then you can just meet me there!”

     “Fine,” Keith answered, adrenaline now pumping in his veins to get him out of the house and to the sign at the front of their neighborhood as fast as he could. 

He slipped into his black pants and put a jacket on over his t-shirt before fitting into his red converse and grabbing his phone. Having everything he needed, he took a deep breath and walked out of his bedroom, trying to sneak downstairs without letting Shiro or Allura know he was up yet. 

When he made his way downstairs, he saw Shiro in the kitchen, wearing a black t-shirt tucked into the bottom of his police uniform. He was fixing coffee and singing to Celine Dion when Keith accidentally laughed out loud on accident, unable to control his reaction to the humorous sight in front of him. 

His eyes widened and he covered his mouth with both hands when Shiro looked to him, startled. Shiro’s eyes widened as he said, “Hey, you’re up!”

Shiro tried to sneakily turn his phone off to stop playing music, but as soon as he made any kind of movement, Keith made a run for it out of the house, shouting out as loud as he could, “I’ll be back later maybe! Lance is picking me up!”

     “What happened to talking to me?” Keith could hear Shiro ask before he slammed the door. 

He ran as fast as he could out of the neighborhood, now breathless as he took a picture of the sign at the front of his neighborhood, sending it to Lance. Lance responded soon after with, ‘Hey, you live like two minutes away from me!’

Keith rolled his eyes and sat in front of the sign, waiting for Lance to show up. As he waited, he didn’t let his mind think about last night or how Lance was maybe just inviting him to his hideout out of pity. It was definitely because of that and Keith new that down to the bottom of his heart, but he was actually going to try to let himself enjoy other’s pity just this once in order to see his first real life hideout ever. 

As Lance said, it only took him two minutes to get there. He pulled up to Keith at the curb and rolled down the window, mimicking a poor country accent as he said, “Howdy Partner! Ain’t a cloud in the sky today; it’s a perfect day to go to my hideout!”

     “I’m going to actually murder you,” Keith smiled eerily, hopping into the car and closing the door behind him. 

Lance’s car was a run down blue ford truck with an engine that was louder than what the volume could go up to on the radio. Keith was thankful for that fact though, realizing how poor Lance’s music tastes were when he turned on some kind of rap that Keith couldn’t even comprehend. He turned to Lance with a face to show his judgement, “You listen to this crap?”

Lance faked a gasp, “What? Do you want to listen to country music?”

Without letting Keith answer that almost sarcastic question, he flipped the channels until it landed on what sounded like country music with a guy on the radio singing about riding on a big green tractor. Keith sat back in his chair, preferring anything but rap music to the extent that he was willing to listen to country music instead. Lance turned the volume down a bit, turning to Keith and asking, “Is this song an innuendo for the Hulk’s dick?”

     “What?” Keith asked, arms crossed to make a point that he was bored in the car with Lance. 

Lance shrugged and looked back at the road with a poker face expression, “Well you know, what else is big and green besides a tractor? Hulk’s dick. And he’s obviously making the tractor and innuendo for something, but surely his own dick isn’t big and green is it?”

Keith peered at Lance, muttering out the words, “What...the...fuck?” Keith sat back in his seat a bit and looked down at the threshold in front of him, “I never thought about that…” 

Lance grinned, “That’s what I’m saying.”

He drove off to the side of the road and parked his car on the outer edge of the woods, saying, “We are about to embark on a short journey to my home away from home. It will get hot, so you can go ahead and take your jacket off.”

     “I’m fine,” Keith got out of the car, now making sure that his scars remained unseen by Lance. 

He followed Lance into the woods, in the end glad that he wore long sleeves due to the poison ivy that was growing everywhere. Lance knew where to step where poison ivy wasn’t going to touch his skin, but Keith didn’t know he was walking straight through it until Lance pointed it out a bit too late. 

After walking for five minutes, Lance finally stopped and shouted out, “We are here!”

Keith looked around, confused at the lack of anything that resembled a hideout around them. He stared at Lance with a worried look, “Do you see things that others can’t see?”

Lance laughed, “No! Obviously a hideout isn’t going to be in plain sight. We have to work a bit to get there.”

     “We just walked through poison ivy for five minutes. Isn’t that good enough?” Keith asked, slumping over. He didn’t know getting to a hideout was going to be this much work. 

Lance patted a tree and said, “You can climb trees right? Or should I go to my hideout and bring back a rope for you to climb instead?”

Keith looked up, “But why am I climbing a tree? Where is your hideout?”

     “Just climb the tree,” Lance insisted, not giving him any answers. 

Lance grabbed a branch on the tree and started to climb up it, grabbing onto more branches and getting higher before he looked back at Keith and said, “Start climbing! I have food in my backpack so we can eat breakfast when we get there.”

Keith sighed and started to climb the tree, knowing that the only other option for him at this point would be to go back through the poison ivy and wait by the car and be a complete killjoy. He struggled to get himself up on some branches, having no upper body strength whatsoever when it came to this kind of stuff. He still managed to keep himself in pace with Lance, finally catching up to him once they reached a branch with a rope ladder attached to it that led to another tree. 

Lance turned to him and said, “Be very careful when going across, ok? It kind of breaks all of the time, so if it does just hold onto the rope as tight as possible and hope that you are holding on to a part of the rope that will keep you from hitting the ground.”

     “Good to know that what we are about to walk on is known to be unstable,” Keith muttered out, watching as Lance started to walk across the ladder. 

Lance seemed to be having an easy time walking across it though, so Keith started to walk across as well, following every move he made exactly in order to make sure that it didn’t break. Lance looked behind him and smiled, “You got this! Just a few more feet.”

Keith nodded his head, “That’s always famous last words.”

Lance laughed and jumped the rest of the way to the other side of the rope ladder, grabbing onto a branch of the other tree and turning back to Keith to say, “Just a few more steps and you will officially be in my hideout.

     “Fucking finally,” Keith muttered, following Lance around to the other side of the tree only to see a few planks of wood that created a floor and walls with two lawn chairs sat on top of the planks. 

Keith stared at it for a moment before looking up at Lance and asking, “Is this it?”

Lance’s smile faded, “What do you mean this is it? This is the best hideout I’ve ever seen in my life.”

     “I mean, it would successfully hide us from… whatever we would need to hide from, but usually hideouts have more stuff to it I guess?”

Lance’s mouth turned into the shape of an ‘o’ as he nodded his head and sighed out, “When it’s Christmas time, I decorate this place a lot, but I mainly just come here to think. If you sit down and look forward, you will see why I love this place so much.”

Keith was about to reply back to him with a snarky comment, but Lance sat him down into a chair and tilted his chin up to make him look at the view before he could say anything. With his hand still holding Keith’s chin, Lance asked, “Now do you see why this is the best hideout ever?”

Keith looked up at Lance, thinking for a moment about he wasn’t so annoying outside of school like this. Just staring at the view, he looked so peaceful and happy to be alive. Keith wanted that. Lance looked back at him and caught Keith staring, causing Keith to awkwardly freeze in his stare into Lance’s eyes. Lance didn’t focus so much on that though when he was embarrassed about how long he had kept his hand on Keith’s chin. 

He pulled away quickly and stuck his hand in his pocket, sitting down in the chair next to Keith quickly as he said, “So my mom really likes you after she met you last night.”

     “Really?” Keith asked, smiling. “I’m surprised after she and your dad found me lurking around your back yard and then I tried to attack your dad.”

Lance laughed awkwardly, already having heard the story from his parents’ point of view. He nodded his head and replied, “They’ve met stranger people. In my mom’s words you are muy guapo.”

Keith’s eyes widened before he whimpered out, “She thinks I’m fat?”

     “What?” Lance asked, eyes wide for a moment before he shook his head and laughed, “No that is gordo. Guapo means… handsome.”

His cheeks were red as he said the word, feeling like those were more his words than his mom’s words. He was surprised to see that Keith’s cheeks were starting to grow red from a blush as well. Keith looked down with a grin fighting it’s way onto his face as he said, “That’s surprising.”

     “What? You are handsome,” Lance defended him from himself, only to realize soon after that he just blatantly called Keith handsome. 

Keith’s face grew redder, “You are too.” 

He looked up quickly and stuttered out, “I mean, I just said that because you complimented me and that is kind of just a reflex to say you are too or something like that, you know? I don’t actually, I mean I do. Yeah I do think you are handsome, but just in a… Ah, that guy is above average looking kind of way.”

Lance laughed, “You are above average looking too.”

     “Oh wow,” Keith laughed as well, looking away. “Sorry I made it awkward.”

     “Nah, you didn’t,” Lance smiled, staring at Keith as he looked off at the view over the top of the trees around them. 

The wind blew lightly through the trees, rattling the leaves and making Keith’s sweaty hair fly behind him a bit. Lance pulled out the food he brought for them to eat, it only being two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottles of frosted flavored Gatorade.

As they ate, Lance smiled and sighed, “You know, you are so mysterious. I just wish I knew more about you.”

     “More about me?” Keith asked, looking behind him to Lance with eyes wide out of surprise. He shook his head and looked down, “I’m not that interesting, honestly. I just move around a lot and I don’t have a family.”

Lance looked up at the clouds in the sky and thought about how he was going to word his next question. He didn’t want to push Keith too far with his questions, but he also couldn’t contain his curiosity about the new kid. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying his best to ask the question as politely as possible, “Are you in the foster care system full time? How did you become an orphan?”

After only a few seconds of silence, Lance grew uncomfortable with the lack of reply and turned to Keith asking, “Also, what is your favorite color?”

Keith laughed a little, still looking down with a troubled look on his face as he slowly etched out the words with a shaking voice, “My favorite color is… red. I have been in the foster care system since I was four due to family problems but just recently two years ago I became an orphan with no family members with an interest to take care of me.”

     “Doesn’t that mean that you can be adopted?” Lance asked, tilting his head in confusion. 

Keith played with his hands and looked up at Lance, laughing out the words awkwardly, “But who would want a teenager like me?”

Lance went quiet, not having any questions or comments to say after that. What could he possibly say in response to what Keith just said? He had no idea what it felt like to feel worthless because he wasn’t even good enough for a family. Lance had a family, a great one. He was the youngest child, a spoiled youngest child, and he had never felt completely worthless a day in his life. What could he say to someone who felt like they were unworthy of even having a family or a home to love?

     “You know, if you want, my parents would so adopt you in a heartbeat,” Lance said sincerely, looking at Keith with determined eyes. “It would be so cool to have a brother in the same grade! My mom would not stop bragging about her new 'guapo' son.”

Keith blushed and looked down quickly, shaking his head as he said, “That’s nice, but your parents would not appreciate you saying something like that. I’m a problem, and I’m not even sure how long I’ll last here before Shiro gets sick of me and returns me.”

    “Return you?” Lance practically shouted out, causing Keith to jump in his seat. Lance quieted down a bit, embarrassed about his outburst, “Is that seriously what foster families do? They don’t even give you a chance? Shiro isn’t thinking about making you leave because of last night, is he?”

Embarrassed about how Lance was getting into this conversation, Keith was red as he answered every question. Keith shrugged and said, “Foster families are meant to be temporary... but I don’t know. Shiro wanted to talk today, but I left before we could. He had work anyway though, so it’s fine I’m out here.”

Lance looked down, worry cast in the expression across his face, “Do you think you could convince him to let you stay? I...I really like you being here. It’s weird to say cause I’ve only know you for a week, but you really are cool. Lunch has been more fun with you too and Hunk and Katie agree.”

     “I hate this place,” Keith admitted, turning to Lance. “Nothing about this place makes me happy or actually think that I have a chance at anything in life.”

     “Oh…”

     “But,” Keith muttered out, smiling a little as he looked into Lance’s eyes. “So far, the only good thing about this place is you.” His eyes widened and he looked down at his folded hands over his knees, “Wow, that sounded really gay.”

Lance laughed, face blushing like mad, “Well that is the biggest compliment I’ve ever been given.”

Keith was still hiding his face in his hands, “I also like Hunk and Katie and your mom and dad… It’s not just you, I swear.”

     “Awe, but I liked it with just me,” Lance smirked, staring at Keith with sly eyes since he wasn’t looking back at him. “It made me feel special.”

Keith looked up, catching Lance’s stare towards him that caused his heart to skip a beat. He rubbed his hands together out of a nervous habit and slowly muttered out, “Y-You felt special?”

Before Lance could say anything, Keith’s phone rang, alerting them about the call with an annoying ringtone that sounded like it was from the early 2000s. Lance covered his mouth when Keith took out his blackberry, and he said under his hand, “What is with the ancient technology man?”

Keith rolled his eyes and flipped Lance off as he answered the call, saying, “Shiro?”

Lance listened in, only able to hear Keith’s side of the conversation, “But will Allura be home? … I care because she doesn’t understand. … Shiro…. If you are going to be like that then I just won’t talk to you about it!”

Lance’s eyes widened and he whispered out harshly, “Hey, I thought you were going to make him want you to stay?”

Keith glanced at Lance for a second, thinking about how he was most definitely digging his own grave by treating Shiro this way. He sighed, admitting to himself that Lance was right before turning his attention back to the phone and saying to Shiro, “Fine, Allura can be there too… But I want to talk to mainly you, ok? … Ok … I-... Bye.”

He hung up the phone and stared to Lance, “Well now I have to have a deep heart talk with Shiro while Allura is in the room with us, so thanks for that.”

     “Sorry I butted in to that, that probably was not my place to say anything,” Lance admitted, looking down. 

Keith placed his hand on Lance’s arm, assuring him that he was fine by saying, “You kind of saved me there. I...I don’t want to fight with Shiro, but sometimes I just can’t stop saying these cruel things to him, because I know he’ll never lash out at me.” Keith sighed, “Thanks is what I’m trying to say, but I need to get back now if I want to talk to him when he gets home from work.”

     “Oh, ok,” Lance said, standing up. “Well I’ll lead the way back then.”

They managed to successfully get down from the hideout and walk back to the car safely with no unfortunate poison ivy rashes on their skin either. In the car, Keith changed the channel from country to a channel playing Panic at the Disco, letting Lance finally hear his taste in music. Lucky for the both of them, Lance actually enjoyed some Panic at the Disco songs. 

By the time Lance dropped Keith off at his house, they were singing Build God, Then We’ll Talk at full volume, Lance being surprised at how into the song Keith was getting. Lance laughed and watched as Keith head banged to the barely head banging melody and yelled out the chorus, sounding better than Lance had thought he would. 

Keith finally stopped when he realized that they were parked in front of his house. His face turned red when he turned to Lance and saw him staring, realizing that he had been shouting out the words in his own world for a while now. He awkwardly unbuckled himself and said, “Oh, we are here… You should have told me,” he laughed, looking away. 

Lance grinned, “I wouldn’t want to stop you. This was so much fun! We have to hang out again sometime, ok?”

     “Ok,” Keith smiled, opening the door. He hopped out and waved to Lance, “Thank you for showing me your hideout! I won’t tell anyone about it, I promise. See you Monday.”

     “See ya Monday,” Lance replied, watching as Keith ran into his house. 

He smiled, placing his hand over his chest to feel how fast his heart was beating. Keith was making him feel a way he had never truly felt before for anyone and he was loving it. He was going to try everything in his power to make Keith stay here in New Mexico. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for the next chapter!


	4. The Hopeful Kid

**_THE FOSTER KID_ **

**_CHAPTER FOUR_ **

* * *

 

     “So how did the talk with your foster parents go?” Lance asked as his greeting to Keith when they ran into each other in the halls on their way to lunch. If Lance were to be honest about their sudden and coincidental run in to each other while walking, he would have to say that it wasn’t so sudden or coincidental. Though, thankfully for him, Keith didn’t notice.

Keith sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jackets to show his frustration with just the thought of thinking back to that whole conversation with Allura and Shiro. He turned to Lance in a pout, “It was the most awkward thing I’ve ever had to do in my life! I had to talk about my feelings and why I ran away from school the day before. I hated it.”

     “Oh, was that it?” Lance made the mistake of asking. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he spoke harshly, “Is that it? I may know Shiro, but I don’t even know Allura and I had to tell her that I left because I-!” he paused before he kept walking on, looking down as he muttered out, “But yeah, that was all we talked about. I couldn’t handle more than five minutes and I locked myself in my room.”

     “You didn’t fight with them though, did you?”

     “No,” Keith mumbled, glancing at Lance out of the corner of his eye, searching for approval of his actions in Lance's reaction. 

Lance smiled and patted Keith’s back, “Good job! That is progress!”

     “It is?” Keith asked, now smiling, surprising Lance when he didn’t flinch or scare away from being patted on the back by him. 

Lance removed his hand anyway, not wanting to go too far past the line he knew he crossed. He nodded his head as they approached their lunch table, grin still visible on his face as he congratulated Keith on his achievement, “You are doing great.”

Keith looked down, touching his face to feel his hot cheeks. He smiled, wanting to take a picture or do something that would contain this feeling he was feeling right now forever. He didn’t remember the last someone told him he was doing something great. Was he ever even told that? 

     “Uh… Lance? Is Keith broken?” Keith heard Hunk’s voice say, causing him to snap out of his trance. 

He looked up and turned even more red when he noticed everyone at the table staring at him. He quickly stuttered out an excuse and an apology, “I’m sorry, no, I was just thinking about…”

    “About what?” Katie asked when Keith paused, now concerned along with the rest of the table staring at him. 

Keith sighed and answered her in almost a question form, not exactly sure what he was planning on saying as it was coming out. The first thing that came to mind was partly the truth though, “I’ve been here a week and I’m already failing Spanish?”

He sat down next to Lance, putting his head in his hands as he mentally reprimanded himself for saying something like that to the group. They probably thought he was so stupid to be failing standard Spanish. There was even a person who fluently spoke Spanish in their group that was probably judging him so hard for not being able to understand what was such an easy language to him. 

     “Oh, I almost failed Spanish last year with all of those stupid endings I had to learn,” Hunk said, surprising Keith by being able to relate to him. 

Keith lifted up his head, “Really? How did you pass?”

Hunk gestured over to Lance, “He did my homework for me but helped me understand the material enough to pass any upcoming tests or quizzes.”

     “He did?” Keith asked, eyes widening as he stared to Lance with an expression that was already begging him for the same treatment. “Can you please help me?”

     “Do your homework?” Lance asked, glaring to Hunk for a split second before resuming eye contact with Keith, “Wouldn’t you rather me just help you understand the material? Hunk got caught near the end of the year, so I don’t want you to risk it.”

Keith pouted, looking down, “Whatever… There’s actually no point to me failing or passing because I won’t even be here long enough for it to matter.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “Fine, I’ll help you do your homework!”

Keith smiled again, “Really? Thank you so much!”

     “Wrapped around his finger,” Katie muttered to Hunk out of range from Lance and Keith though Hunk laughed out loud at the comment. 

After school, Lance managed to catch Keith leaving to walk to Shiro’s car. He was too afraid to grab Keith’s shoulder and catch his attention from behind with any kind of physical touch, so he ran up ahead of Keith and turned around to face him in front of him. 

Keith stopped in his tracks, surprised that Lance was in front of him, “...Lance? Don’t you have soccer practice?”

     “Oh yeah, I’m going to have to run laps for being late,” Lance laughed, rubbing his hair lightly behind his head with his hand. “I just had a quick question to ask you.”

Keith’s heart started to beat fast now that Lance had said those words. Keith’s heart always beat quickly when someone said they needed to talk to him or had to speak with him or had to ask a question. He always wondered what he had done wrong to cause them to want to give him any kind of attention, but with Lance, he was anxious for other reasons. He was wondering if Lance was wanting to hang out in anyway, whether that be a date, study session, or in his hideout. Ok, Lance was never going to ask him out on a date, but his mind did go there with a hopeful heart. 

     “What is it?” Keith stuttered out, trying to sound calm and collected when it only sounded obvious he was nervous about what Lance had to ask. 

Lance seemed just as anxious about asking the question though too, his eyes darting off to the side, anywhere but towards Keith, as he asked, “When is your next test or quiz in Spanish?”

Keith frowned a bit, feeling like that question was anti-climatic, but answering Lance anyways as if he wasn’t let down by his heart wishing too hard, “It’s Thursday. I was planning on failing it and then starting to study with you right after. Does that sound good?”

Lance’s eyes widened, “Hell no! What is the test on?”

     “Uh…” Keith thought for a moment, looking down. “I’m not sure, I don’t listen in class.” The teacher that seemed so determined to make him love Spanish by the end of the year had already given up on him after the first three days, seeing as it was obvious the only thing Keith did in that class was either sleep or draw crappy comics of second rate superheroes.

     “I’ll just ask your teacher then,” Lance sighed, finally looking Keith in the eye. “Do you think Shiro would mind if you spent the night at my house two nights in a row to study for it? To save your grade, you should start passing starting with this test.”

Keith shrugged, “I’m sure he wouldn’t care. So Wednesday and Thursday night?” 

     “You can wait for me to finish up practice and then we can go to my house together,” Lance smiled, eyes widening as he added on, “But make sure to ask Shiro first. My dad would kill me if you came over without asking anyone first.”

     “I will,” Keith smiled, looking down. “Thank you… for helping me. No one has ever cared this much.”

Lance patted Keith on the shoulder lightly, forgetting for a brief moment about how Keith hated to be touched. When he did remember that fact about him, he noticed how Keith didn’t seem to brought back by his touch. He lingered his fingers on Keith’s shoulder for as long as he could as he said, “It’s no problem.” Lance looked at his watch and shouted out, “Crap, I have to hurry if I don’t want my coach to skin me alive. Text you tonight!”

     “Ok,” Keith replied, turning and watching as Lance ran back into the school to go to practice, leaving him in front of the school with a smile and a blush spread across his face. 

When he finally turned back around, he was facing Shiro’s car with Shiro staring at him with a confused yet curious look on his face as to why Keith was ten shades too red with a smile he hadn’t seen in ages on his face.

Keith frowned again, feeling embarrassed that he was caught smiling at the fact that he just got to have an extra conversation with Lance for the day. Was Shiro going to say something about it? If he did, he was going to actually jump out of the car and hope he was run over in the process. 

He walked over to the car and got in, saying as he shut the door, “Tomorrow night and Wednesday night can I sleep over at Lance’s house? He speaks Spanish and is going to help me pass the next test.”

     “Oh wow he is?” Shiro asked, “That is very considerate of him. Of course you can go.”

     “Great, thanks,” Keith replied, looking out the window as they drove out of the school parking lot. 

They drove in silence in the direction towards home for a few minutes like always, never having anything to say to each other, or having a million things to say to each other but never knowing if it was the right time to ask anything. Keith finally ended the silence though to ask Shiro out of the blue, “Shiro, if you aren’t planning on taking me back to the foster care center… how long do you plan on keeping me exactly?”

Shiro took a deep breath. Keith heard it and could tell it was one that showed Shiro’s obvious distaste to the topic. He should have known that Shiro wouldn’t have wanted to talk about something that would cause Keith to explode, so Keith quickly shook his head and took back his words, “Nevermind, I don’t know why I asked that.”

There was silence. 

Of course Shiro was going to take advantage of not having to talk about this. Who wanted to tell the ticking time bomb of a foster kid that they weren’t good enough for yet another temporary family? It sucked, Keith knew because he had been told that news his whole life, but he couldn’t stand being held out on the cliff hanger on whether or not he should get attached to this place. 

     “You know what, I do know why I asked that. I don’t want to get attached to this place and the people here if you are going to send me back by next month,” Keith stated, leaning against the car door and crossing his arms. “I hate being kept in the dark about what is going to happen to me.”

     “You aren’t going to be gone by next month,” Shiro sighed, still staring forward as if he was trying to ignore Keith. He had a troubled look on his face that set off all of the alarms in Keith’s mind. 

Keith leaned forward, “Ok then, will I be gone by Thanksgiving? Christmas? Tell me now, because I could arrange for another family to adopt me and get me off your hands if you aren’t planning on keeping me.”

Shiro laughed a little under his breath, “Keith, you are being ridiculous. Don’t worry about it. And you are talking like you are a pet or something, saying ‘keeping you’ and ‘returning you’.”

     “I just talk about myself like how people have talked about me my whole life,” Keith answered dryly. “So should I be happy I made friends or not get emotionally attached to them?”

     “Of course you can get emotionally attached to people, Keith,” Shiro answered, though it wasn’t exactly answering Keith’s question directly. 

In fact, it wasn’t answering Keith’s question at all. Keith sighed and went silent for the rest of the ride until they got home. He got out of the car as fast as he could, running over to the door that led into the house and blocked Shiro from entering as he said, “Tell me when I’m leaving.”

Shiro looked down at Keith, “You know I could lift you up and set you down out of my way.”

     “Why are you acting like a dick!” Keith yelled, grabbing the doorknob of the door with his hand just in case Shiro did end up picking him up. At least with the doorknob, he would have something to hold on to for Shiro to have a bit of a challenge moving him out of the way.

Shiro sighed, “Keith, I’d prefer not to talk about this right now, but I can assure you, I have no plans on returning you.”

     “So you are adopting me?” Keith asked, knowing that the answer to that was a definite no, but just saying it to get that out there that he wondered if Shiro was ever going to think about adopting him. 

     “Maybe,” Shiro sighed, looking down and crossing his arms. 

Keith’s eyes widened, “Maybe?! What is that supposed to mean?” He sounded way too excited than what he meant for. He wanted to tone it back a bit, but he couldn’t stop grinning even as he asked, “How soon can you adopt me?”

Shiro looked at the door then back at Keith and whispered, “Keep your voice down… I haven’t even told Allura about it, but it was always my intentions to do that. And I didn’t want to tell you like this with me being unsure if Allura would even go for it, but you look like you are about to cry.”

     “I do not,” Keith pouted, letting go of the door and wiping his eyes just in case. “But all it takes is Allura saying yes and then I’m part of your family?”

Shiro smiled, “In a way, yes. That and a lot of paperwork.”

     “Great! I’ll get Allura to say yes!” Keith declared, turning around to open the door and walk into the house until Shiro held him back and said, “Nope. I’ll be the one to talk to her. Your job in the meantime is to keep this adoption thing a secret between us and make her feel like she wants you around longer. You haven’t exactly been treating her well the past few weeks.”

     “Because she’s not my mom, but she tries to pretend to be,” Keith muttered out as Shiro opened the door and walked inside. 

He turned back to Keith, giving him almost a glare though it was too soft as he said in a low tone, “Keith…”

Keith rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, “Fine, fine. She’s my mom.”

     “No, I didn’t mean-!” Shiro started to say, but Keith interrupted him by running past him and shouting, “Hey Allura! How was your day?”

He surprised both Shiro and Allura by this outburst, and the fact that he was smiling wide from ear to ear didn’t help. Allura raised an eyebrow and looked up to Shiro as she answered Keith, “It was fine? How was your day at school?”

     “Amazing!” Keith laughed through his teeth as he stepped away from her and into the direction of his room. “Friends are amazing. Classes are amazing,” he eyed Shiro with a threatening look, “Family. Is amazing. I hope the rest of your day is just as great as mine! I’ll be in my room.”

He turned around and let his face relax into a frown before running up the stairs to his room to text Lance the news about Shiro thinking about adopting him. He was too excited to contain himself, he almost thought about jumping out of his window and running to Lance’s house to spend the night with him a night early and talk to him about his conversation with Shiro, but he chose to go against that plan since he was too afraid of getting lost again and also wanted to stay on Shiro’s good side for now.

The next day, Keith met Lance at the front doors of the school, needing to meet him there in order to follow him to his car and leave his sleepover bag in there so he didn’t have to carry it around all day. As they walked, Lance demanded to hear every detail about the night before. 

     “So you are basically in, right? Like, you can’t take back what you say to an orphan about adopting them. There has to be a rule about that!” Lance said as they sped walked back to the school in order to get there in time. 

Keith was becoming out of breath from walking so fast, still managing to answer Lance though, “Allura is too nice to say no to him about that kind of stuff, but I’m worried something will happen and then he’s gonna be like ‘Sorry buddy, but things have changed.’”

     “That would be depressing,” Lance commented, looking down. His eyes widened and he grinned not even a second after though, exclaiming, “But then my family will swoop in and adopt you!”

Keith smiled even though he knew that was a far fetched idea to what would really happen if Shiro decided he wasn’t a fit for his family. He looked down though, laughing a little, “Keith McClain doesn’t sound too bad.”

The two of them went silent. It wasn’t an awkward silence or an unrequited silence either. It was a silence of realization as the two of them thought about what Keith just said. Lance was the one to end up saying his thoughts out loud though for everyone around them to hear, “Wow, it sounds like we’re getting married when you say that!”

Keith’s eyes widened and he hushed Lance, looking at a group of kids in their grade that shot them judging looks. He placed his hand on Lance’s mouth and said, “Shut up! We aren’t.”

     “Is it legal here? We’d have to go to California if we wanted to get married cause everything is legal there,” Lance joked, ignoring Keith’s desperate attempts to silence him. 

Keith groaned and elbows Lance in the stomach, “You’re annoying, See you at lunch.”

     “Wait, Keith!” Lance shouted, causing Keith to freeze and turn back to him with a confused look as if to ask what he wanted simply through facial expressions.

Lance smiled, “Pay attention in Spanish today.”

Keith rolled his eyes and smiled, “Will do. Bye now.”

     “Bye,” Lance waved to Keith as he ran off to his first class just as the first warning bell for class rang. 

After school, Lance and Keith met up by the boys’ locker room. Lance invited Keith into the locker room with him to which Keith had no choice but to accept the invite since it would look suspicious if he didn’t. 

     “Since you have an ancient phone with nothing to do on it, what are you going to do for the next two hours?” Lance asked, taking his shirt off to change. 

Keith was about to answer until that exact sight caught his eye and he became speechless. Lance was just as how he imagine him without a shirt on. He didn’t exactly have rock hard abs, but he was fit. Keith could see the outline of abs though they were faint on his flat stomach. 

     “Keith?” Lance asked again, forcing Keith to leave his tranced state and look up at him. 

     “Hmm?” Keith muttered out, face red as he stared more at Lance who was still shirtless. 

Lance started to put his practice shirt on, “What are you going to do for the next two hours while I’m practicing?”

     “I’ll probably just watch you,” Keith answered, looking down finally. 

It was like when Lance covered up his stomach, a spell that was cast over Keith was finally broken. It was only a matter of time before he was cursed or blessed again once Lance took off his shirt once more. Keith kept his stare down at the ground until Lance was fully dressed in his practice clothes. 

Once it was safe to stare back up at Lance, Keith stood up and said, “I’m going to sit out on the benches. See you when you go out for practice.”

     “Oh, ok,” Lance said, a bit surprised that Keith cut their time short. 

Keith walked outside and to the benches, holding his backpack tightly. He sat down on the highest level of the bleachers and slumped over, thinking about how stupid he was to act like that in front of Lance. He felt how hot his face was; he knew he was blushing. Lance probably saw right through him and was having worries about if he was gay or not. 

Well, he was gay. But he wasn’t going to ever let Lance know. He didn’t want to ruin the one friendship he had made since he met Shiro when he was four. Keith took out his phone to text Shiro and ask, ‘Hey are you planning on asking Allura about the idea of adopting me while I am gone?’

While waiting for Shiro to reply, Keith played pac-man on his phone until Lance and the rest of the soccer team came out on the field. Keith watched as Lance’s eyes immediately started searching for him until they locked eyes with each other. 

Keith nodded to let Lance know he saw him and Lance grinned and waved to him. Other people on the team started to look at Keith as well to see who Lance was waving to, so Keith gave Lance a quick hand raise to make him stop. Keith couldn't help but laugh though when Lance was soon turned away by his coach who was demanding attention.

He stared down at his phone again to see that Shiro responded, ‘Allura is slumped with work, but I’ll tell you if I am able to talk to her about it.’

Keith didn’t respond back, knowing that that was Shiro’s nice way of saying ‘shut up about it for now and I’ll talk to you when I’m ready’. He had known Shiro way too long to not be able to see through his kindness sometimes. Yes, most of the time Shiro’s kindness was genuine, but there were always moments where Keith could tell he should stop annoying him.

For the rest of Lance’s practice, Keith watched and took mental screenshots - and some sneaky photos on his phone - of Lance in action. He was the best player on the team from Keith’s point of view, quick and smart when it came to a game plan. Next year, he was definitely going to be the senior captain of the team if there was one in soccer. And for some odd reason, Keith felt proud about that. 

Lance quickly changed and met him on the bleachers since Keith didn’t have enough confidence to be able to find his way through the school and not get lost. Lance’s hair looked soaked and he smelled like sweat, which Keith would normally be repulsed by, but this time he only felt drawn into it. This sweat smelled more like Lance than anything else. He wanted that scent to wrap its arm around him, but even he was afraid of how he would react to that kind of psychical touch if he wasn’t in the right mood. 

They walked to Lance’s car and got in, driving to Lance’s house in a time of ten minutes. On the ride to his house, Lance asked Keith all of the kinds of questions that would keep the conversation going. 

     “So what hobbies do you do?” Lance asked randomly, right in the middle of their conversation about how dogs weren’t as harmful as Keith was making it out to be.

Keith froze, knowing his previous hobbies but now trying to think of new hobbies to lie and tell Lance he did. He turned to Lance, “Art.”

     “Bull,” Lance laughed, managing to keep his eyes on the road. “You do not strike me as an artsy guy.”

     “Well what do I strike you as?” Keith huffed, crossing his arms in a pout. 

Lance finally looked at him though it was for a split second and out of the corner of his eye before he slowly and unsurely answered with, “I know my dad’s a cop, but you can tell me. Are you possibly in a fight club?”

Keith rolled his eyes, “If those existed, I wouldn’t even know how to be in one.”

     “They do exist!” Lance smiled. “My dad shut down one about a year ago.”

    “Wow,” Keith mumbled, his tone oozing with sarcastic enthusiasm. “Well I’m not in fight club. I guess I’m not in anything because I move around areas too much, so yeah, I don’t have a hobby.”

Lance hunched forward in a brooding position, “No, I think you’re not telling me something. Do you possibly sing?” he gasped, “Are you a musical theatre kid? You don’t sound half bad, but I have bad news to tell you. You already missed auditions for the musical.”

     “I’ve never even seen or heard a musical in my life,” Keith answered, sighing. “I’m never going to tell you anything, so you can give up.”

     “That’s fine,” Lance fake smiled, turning into his driveway and parking. He turned to Keith slowly and whispered loud enough for him to hear, “You are going to want to tell me later, just you wait.”

Keith’s eyes widened as Lance got out of the car, “Was that a threat?”

     “Nope,” Lance grinned, “Just a promise.”

He placed his hand on the door to his house and said to Keith, “Before we walk in, no matter what my mom says to you, don’t let your ego get too big from her filling you up with compliments, ok?”

     “Alright, I’ll try,” Keith nodded his head slowly and holding up an ‘ok’ sign with his hands that he wasn’t even sure what the meaning was. 

He took a deep breath though, ready to see Lance’s parents again because they were nice, but also more nervous than ever before because this was in fact, his first sleepover ever. It was either going to go better than he ever dreamed or be an absolute disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter! Happy Birthday Lance!!!


	5. The Cuddly Kid

**_THE FOSTER KID_ **

**_CHAPTER FIVE_ **

     “Momma, I’m home!” Lance called out, walking into the house with Keith right beside him, making sure to not let any distance come between them so he could be prepared for anything. 

    “With Keith?” she called out from the kitchen. 

Lance’s smile turned into an annoyed frown as he groaned out and yelled back, “Yeah, with Keith.” He turned to Keith and sighed, “Told you she is obsessed with you.”

Keith blushed and looked down, not knowing whether to say thank you or sorry to Lance at this point. He was also now afraid of completely blowing this and making Lance’s mom hate him by the end of the two night sleepover, which was sadly a very high possibility. 

     “Hey mom, we are going to go put our stuff upstairs, but we will come down in a bit,” Lance shouted out to his mom in the other room before taking Keith’s hand and leading him upstairs. 

Keith was shocked by Lance taking his hand, his first reaction wanting to pull away, but his second reaction holding it back. Holding hands only led to wanting to hold more of Lance though, and Keith knew how dangerous that was. He could sense himself being pulled in Lance’s direction, wanting to touch their shoulders together, their foreheads together, their lips together. He was going to have a harder time than he originally thought having a sleepover with Lance would be. 

When they got to Lance’s room, Lance boomed out with pride, raising his arms up to show off his neat room and spinning around slowly as he beamed out, “Welcome to my room! The place where dreams come true and memories happen.”

     “Wow my room is just where I sleep,” Keith muttered out, looking around Lance’s room to see that there was a galaxy print all over the wall and ceiling, kind of making it feel like they were out in space. 

He set his bags down by the door and walked over to the bed, “Why is everything space themed?”

     “Because this is a space themed room,” Lance answered as if it was obvious, sitting down on his bed next to Keith. He tilted his head and smiled, “And also because I’d like to go up there one day. It’s a crazy dream and I know I’m obviously not going to do it because I’m not rocket scientist smart or anything like that, but if I had the chance to go, I would.”

     “Well you should,” Keith replied, eyes wide with determination. “That would be awesome to know an astronaut.”

Lance laughed and laid back on his bed that was pressed up against the wall, “If I went to space, it would be to fight aliens more than gather moon samples or boring stuff like that. I don’t want to be an astronaut though, so I will never be able to go up there. I want to be an F.B.I. agent like my older brother!”

    “Woah, an F.B.I. agent?” Keith’s eyes widened, laying on the bed next to Lance, looking at him with sparkling eyes that were so infatuated with the idea. He smile and looked back up at the ceiling, “That’s what I would want to be if I could be anything.”

Lance sat up a bit, propping himself up with his elbow in order to look at Keith’s face still, “You can, can’t you? You are still in high school so you can still choose what you want to be.”

Keith’s smile faltered when Lance stopped talking. He bit his lip and looked down at his flat stomach, his white flesh showing underneath his ruffled up shirt, “You know most foster kids don’t exactly have a bright future ahead of them, don’t you?”

     “Yeah, but you are being adopted by Shiro!” Lance smiled. “What do you want to be?”

Keith sighed, still wary of the fact that he was already excited about Shiro adopting him. He knew that if he had his hopes up too much, then the disappointment of not being adopted would crush him even more. He still smiled for Lance though and replied, “I want to be an F.B.I. agent too.”

-

     “Mom, stop embarrassing me! What did I ever do to you?” Lance whined out over the laughter that was consuming the conservation. 

Keith and Lance were sitting down with his parents at the dinner table, eating spaghetti and listening to his mom talk about how Lance learned the hard way that Red Bull did not in fact give you wings. 

His mom ignored his cries of protests as she slapped her hands down on the table lightly and laughed out before saying to Keith, “I’m just surprised he didn’t break his arm after jumping off of his balcony like that! Oh, but I’m so glad, it was his sister who found him and not me. I would have had a heart attack.”

Lance resorted to defeat and crossed his arms, finding it worth it to have Keith listen to his embarrassing failure if he got to sit back and see Keith’s smile and his laugh like this. Keith glanced at him though and caught him staring, so he had to move his gaze in order for the moment to not turn awkward. 

     “So how many siblings does Lance have exactly?” Keith coughed, choosing not to over-analyze what it meant by Lance staring at him with a gaze he hadn’t quite seen before. 

Lance’s dad, who came home already changed out of his uniform for Keith’s sake, spoke up, “He has two older siblings: his older brother who has two kids and lives nearby and his older sister who is in college right now.”

     “I am the last of my kind,” Lance said dramatically, still fighting a smile from spreading wide across his face. 

Keith laughed, “It makes so much sense now that I know you are the spoiled younger child.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he looked to Keith quickly with a pout as his mom spoke up and asked Keith, “I know you are in foster care, but do you have any siblings?”

Keith thought for a moment, then shook his head and answered, “Nope. Or at least that I know of. Shiro, the guy taking care of me right now, has been like a brother to me though since I was four and placed in the foster care system for the first time. He took me in and made most of who I am now until he turned eighteen and had to leave.”

     “Shiro was a foster kid?” Lance’s father asked, having known him from work and never expected that. 

Keith’s eyes widened, filled with visible anxiety as he stuttered out, “Oh no, he probably didn’t want his work to know. Could you not tell him I told you?”

Lance clenched his teeth, knowing how hard Keith was trying to do everything right in order for Shiro to adopt him. He hoped his dad wouldn’t screw this up for him, quickly glancing in his direction with eyes that were screaming to do as Keith wanted. His dad looked to him for a brief moment, eyes widening in confusion at the face Lance was making before he sighed and said, “Of course, I won’t tell anyone. It is nothing to be ashamed of though.”

Both Keith and Lance let out a sigh at the same time, one thankful that Shiro’s new life wasn’t going to be overshadowed by his past and one thankful that Keith wasn’t going to have to worry about not being adopted. 

After dinner, Lance’s mom let the two of them run upstairs to study while she and Lance’s father cleaned the dishes. Keith’s first words after they closed the door behind them and were alone in the room was, “We aren’t actually going to study are we?”

      “You aren’t actually going to fail are you?” Lance asked, taking Keith’s bag and opening it up only to look up at Keith and shout out, “You have no books in here! Why do you carry around a backpack if you have nothing to pack on the back?”

Keith shrugged, “It would look weird if I didn’t have a backpack while walking around school.” He sat on the floor next to his backpack. “And I have a notebook in there!” Keith’s eyes widened when Lance pulled it out. He reached for his notebook and snatched it away from him, stating clearly with the click of his tongue, “Private notebook.”

Lance was unamused, raising an eyebrow as he said, “Well while you were writing to your future self in your diary, were you paying attention at all in Spanish class? Do you pay attention in any of you classes?”

Keith opened his mouth to argue but quickly shut it again when he realized he had nothing to argue with. Lance was making a good point with his questions. Keith never paid attention in class and this was what was hurting him. 

He sighed and put his notebook back in his backpack, “Fine, fine, let’s get studying. What is this test on?”

     “Lucky for you, just a few nouns having to do with emotions and feelings. I’m going to make flashcards and we are going to memorize these by Thursday, ok?” Lance said, shuffling over on his knees to his desk to grab a stack of empty flash cards from his drawer. He turned back around and said, “Your teacher gave me the vocab list so all you have to do is wait for me to finish these flashcards and we will be on the road to an A on the test. 

Twenty minutes later, the road was looking more like a maze with ditches and hidden dead ends every left turn. The flashcards were complete and Keith was at least sitting in front of him and making somewhat of an effort to learn, but Lance was already starting to understand why teachers lost their patience so early in the day with students. 

     “No, no, Keith. Avergonzada is embarrassed. Say Avergonzada,” Lance tried to say as calmly as possibly though his words came out stale and impatient, which didn’t help Keith’s steadily growing frustration.

Keith moved his lips slowly, “Aveargonhado…. Ugh! I hate this Lance! I’m done! I’m going to bed and I’m failing that test on Thursday!”

He let the upper half of his body fall back on the ground in a fit of anger as he grabbed his hair lightly and covered his eyes with his hands. Lance sighed and poked Keith’s belly, causing him to sit up straight again quickly, earning Lance a light slap on the hand. Lance held the flashcard up in front of Keith’s face with the Spanish side facing him, “Can I tell you a story?”

Keith bit his lip, eyes squinting a bit as he answered slowly in a question form, “Yeah?”

Lance placed the flashcard down on the carpeted ground in between them and said, “Do you know my brother’s name?”

     “No,” Keith answered, still sounding angry and impatient with this whole situation he was regrettably in. “What is it?”

     “It’s Aver,” Lance replied, tilting his head a bit and staring off to the side. “His wife name is Zada, which is a strange name, but we love her anyway.”

Keith leaned forward a bit, “Does her name matter to the story?”

Lance looked to Keith with forward and serious eyes, a frown in the form of a strict line still present on his face, making Keith feel like he was in trouble, “Yes. If you forget either of their names, I’ll have to tell you the whole story all over again.”

Keith bit his bottom lip for a moment, taking in the new task he was told to do. He nodded his head and said in a determined tone, “Ok, keep going then. Aver and Zada, I got it.”

Lance sighed, “Well, back when my brother, Aver, married his wife, Zada, we thought it would be funny to play a joke on her when Aver left to go to work one day.”

     “You said he was an F.B.I. agent right?” Keith asked, already engrossed in the story. 

Lance nodded his head, “A very dangerous job. Zada knew that too, we all knew that. That was why we thought it would be hilarious to trick her and tell her that her new husband was dead from a mission that went wrong.”

Keith’s eyes widened, “What? That’s not funny! She probably hates you now doesn’t she?”

     “Well, we walked up to her doorstep,” Lance ignored Keith. “When she asked what was wrong, I was the one to step up and tell her, ‘Aver’s gone, Zada. Aver gone, Zada. Avergonzada...." Lance grinned and looked to Keith out of the corner of his eyes with his eyebrows raised, "Do you get it now?”

Keith leaned forward more, “But what was her reaction?”

Lance’s eyes widened in confusion, “Avergonzada!”

     “Ok, I get you told her that, but what is the point of this story? What did she do after you kept telling her that Aver was gone?”

Lance slapped his palms to his face and groaned out in a frustrated agony, “You are an actual idiot.”

     “What?” Keith asked, tilting his head. “I just want to know what happened after you said Avergonzada, what is so wrong with-!”

He paused his shouts when he realized what had just happened. He said avergonzada so perfectly as if he never had trouble with that word in the first place. He broke away from his thoughts when he heard Lance laughing loudly and saying, “Wow I bet you are so avergonzado right now! But you have to admit, that fake story helped a lot. I always make fake stories up when I have trouble memorizing terms or saying words.”

Keith didn’t respond, now too busy trying to figure out whether or not he should be thankful to Lance for making him finally be able to say avergonzada so effortlessly or be angry at him for making him feel stupid. Keith finally decided to feel both though, slapping Lance lightly on the shoulder before hugging him and laughing as he sang out, “I’m going to get an A!”

     “Woah there, that is one word out of many, but I’m happy you are happy,” Lance replied, hugging Keith back. 

The moment lasted for a few more seconds until they both realized the position they were in and awkwardly got off of each other, both too afraid to make eye contact now but also screaming at themselves in their minds to make enough eye contact with each other to not turn the situation too awkward.

Sadly, the opportunity to save the moment from turning as awkward as it could be passed and Keith stuttered out while staring at the ground, “Well I am kind of hermoso right now, so I’m going to go to bed.”

Lance laughed a little, getting up with Keith though he was still looking down at the ground, “I think you mean cansado, which is tired, but yeah, you are also hermoso.”

Keith looked at Lance, expecting him to explain himself or at least explain what hermoso meant, but instead Lance just walked away to the bathroom connected to his room and said, “I’m gonna put on my pjs. You can change in here.”

     “What does hermoso mean?” Keith called out to him, following him with his eyes and watching as he grabbed a t-shirt out of his dresser. 

Lance looked to him, face now bright red and full of worry as he stuttered a bit and replied to Keith with a barely audible answer, “It means funny.”

     “Oh,” Keith smiled a little. “You think I’m funny?”

Hermoso didn’t mean funny. Lance did think that Keith was funny too, but that wasn’t what he said. He was so stupid to say one of Keith’s vocab words that he was going to have to know to pass the test on Thursday… Keith was going to figure out what hermoso really meant and then what was he going to do? It wasn’t normal for a guy to tell his friend he thought he looked beautiful. Keith was beautiful and Lance would have easily told him that in English if he wanted to when they had just met, but now… now he didn’t want to mess up what they had. He didn’t want to scare Keith off. 

He nodded his head, “Yep! Yeah, funny. Very funny.”

Keith grinned, “No one has ever thought I was hermoso before. Thank you!”

Hearing Keith say that no one has ever though he was beautiful before made Lance’s heart twinge with a feeling of guilt and sadness for Keith, even though Keith meant it as ‘funny’ and not ‘beautiful’. It was sad either way if Lance thought about it.  Lance looked down and headed to the bathroom, needing to get away from Keith for just a few seconds to cool his blush down and calm his mind before he lost control and said something else a bit risky to Keith. 

Once he was gone, Keith started to change as well, pulling out his clothes and changing into them until he realized that he had accidentally packed a short sleeved pajama t-shirt on accident instead of a long sleeved shirt. He was in mid-change, shirt off and pajama bottoms that went down to just above his knees already on.  He looked down at his arms and knew that the first thing Lance would see when he saw him would be the still red scars stacked together along his arm. He should have switched to a less visible place on his body like his hips or his legs or something. No, he should have stopped completely when Shiro confronted him about it. 

He threw the shirt on and then put his leather jacket he was wearing back on. Was it too weird to sleep in a leather jacket? Could he maybe wrap a blanket around him as well so Lance would just think he was cold? No, it was way too hot for that. It was way too hot for long sleeves even, making him stick out even more into the mindset of suspicion. 

Keith heard the door to Lance’s bathroom click, so he quickly sat down on the ground and tried to pose in the most natural way possible so Lance wouldn’t find him suspicious. Lance walked out of the bathroom with only his boxers and a t-shirt on, causing Keith to lose his breath for a moment. Keith had seen Lance's legs in his practice shorts when he was playing soccer earlier, but not up close like this. His legs were skinny but muscular, not showing an ounce of fat on them.  His eyes started to trail up to what was being concealed in Lance's boxers, but he quickly looked away, mind thankfully getting the better of him and telling him that Lance was definitely going to notice if he was staring breathlessly at his junk with his mouth wide open. 

Lance looked down at Keith and laughed a little, “What are you doing still wearing that jacket?” 

So much went for the plan to make Lance not ask about why he was wearing it still. Keith awkwardly looked away and grabbed the cuffs of his sleeves, trying to answer as confidently as possible, “I’m part of a biker gang and it is sacred code to wear this jacket at all times.”

Well that was a terrible lie, but there was no going back now. 

     “Oh yeah?” Lance asked, sitting on his bed with a smile and a raised eyebrow. “What is your gang called?”

Keith’s eyes widened, not even sure how he got this far with his terrible lie. He looked down at his red and white jacket and stuttered out, “W-Well we are called,” his eyes darted over to his backpack, giving him the idea to say, “Kogane Riders?”

     “Hmm,” Lance smiled, nodding his head. “So you, Keith Kogane, are the leader?”

     “Of course.”

Lance laughed, “I’ve never heard of a biker gang where their leader can’t even ride a motorcycle.”

Keith pouted and threw a pillow in Lance’s direction, “I’m just the mascot! Whatever, I’m going to bed.”

He laid down on the ground and turned over, still crossing his arms as he stared at the wall and waited for Lance to say something that would make him turn around again and continue talking. All he heard though was Lance laying back on his bed before he said, “You aren’t sleeping on the ground are you?”

     “Where else would I sleep?”

Lance turned to look at Keith, smiling when he noticed that keith put his hair up in a low ponytail, “In bed with me obviously.”

Keith’s eyes widened and his face turned red, making him thankful he wasn’t facing in Lance’s direction. His facial expression when Lance spoke would have outed him right at that moment. He shifted a bit and said in a low voice he managed to fake to sound more masculine and less nervous about what Lance just said, “I’m fine on the ground.”

     “With the spiders?”

     “What?” Keith asked, finally turning around to look at Lance with wide, scared eyes. 

Lance nodded his head, “You know how spiders come out at night and crawl around on the ground. That’s why beds are a thing.”

Keith got up quickly, “Fine we can share a bed, but you can’t hog the covers.”

Lance grinned and got underneath the covers, “Turn off the lights and I won’t.”

Once the lights were off and both boys were under the covers, Lance started to talk again, now onto a completely random subject having forgotten all about the dilemma with Keith wanting to wear his leather jacket even at night. 

    “Have you ever dated anyone?” Lance asked as both of them stared up at the glowing sticker stars and planets that were on his ceiling. 

They were dimly lit, barely working anymore though they stood out if one would stare at it long enough. Keith went silent for a moment with the question, unsure if he should lie and say no or say yes and lie about the gender he dated. He decided to go with the latter, saying, “Yeah, I’ve dated a few girls. It never lasted long though.”

     “Oh,” Lance muttered out, turning his head to look at Keith, though he could only see his shadowy figure in the dark. “Why?”

     “Why?” Keith repeated, sighing. “They weren’t very nice.”

He wasn’t lying about that part. The boys he had dated in the past were not nice at all especially to him. He either dated people from his new high schools or other kids in the group homes who just needed a stress reliever at night. He was their stress reliever in more ways than one though. 

Lance was quiet, so Keith asked, “Have you ever dated anyone?”

He heard a laugh escape Lance’s lips as the other boy shook his head and replied, “Nah, I have no luck. Did you ever have a nice girlfriend though?”

Did Keith ever have a nice boyfriend? Was he ever happy with anyone that labeled him as their boyfriend? After Shiro left, Keith’s only means of survival in the group homes was to please the strongest guy there that would protect him the best against other threats in the home. Of course, when constantly being around a strong kid who was just as angry about the world as he was, Keith was still beaten down by his only shield. Not even the ones in his high schools were much different, choosing to stay in the closet, which meant that they treated him like trash when other kids were around. 

     “No,” Keith answered, lips closing as soon as he spoke and tightening into a straight line. 

He gulped and closed his eyes, feeling his own heartbeat that was beating loudly as Lance asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Keith shook his head, chewing on the side of his mouth and biting his lip at the same time as a double effort to keep himself from crying, “Not really.”

Lance nodded his head, falling quiet. His mind was racing with theories already of what these girls could have done to Keith when they were dating to make Keith not even want to talk about it. He turned over on his side to have a better view of Keith in the dark, squinting his eyes to focus in on Keith’s face better.  He could hear Keith’s steady breathing, his chest moving up and down slowly. He wanted to say something like, ‘It’s going to be ok’ or ‘The girls here are nicer’, but Keith knew everything was going to be ok. He didn’t need to be assured. And… he didn’t want Keith to be dating any girls while he was here so he chose not to mention them at all. 

Both boys fell asleep soon after, not saying another word to each other because of their exhaustion that won and pulled the covers over the conversation. They woke up early the next morning to Lance’s set alarm clock, playing the song ‘Sweet Caroline’ which he had to quickly turn off due to the worry and embarrassment of having Keith hear that as his daily wake up song. 

Once he turned around to slammed his hand down on his alarm clock, he quickly realized that Keith’s arms were wrapped around his torso tightly, gripping onto him as if that would keep him in bed. Lance blushed and looked down, tilting his head and whispering out, “Keith?...”

There was no answer. 

Keith was asleep and holding him. Did Keith mistake him for someone else or was Keith just secretly a cuddler in bed? Lance turned bright red at the thought. Could he stay like this for just a bit more? Was that allowed? If Keith woke up he could just quickly close his eyes and pretend that he was still asleep. 

He laid his arm across Keith’s side, brushing his black hair out of his face, lingering his fingertips on his hair for a few seconds longer once he realized how soft it was. Lance grinned, feeling his heart having a spasm in his chest that grew stronger every second longer he stared at Keith and pretended like they were dating in his mind. It was a pretty wild dream, but dreams were meant to be wild. 

All while Lance was smiling to himself and thinking about what it would be like for them to date, Keith was wondering just how he was going to try to fake waking up in a way so Lance would believe he had been asleep this whole time. At least, that was what he was thinking until he realized that Lance was awake now too, holding him in his arms as well and staring at him as he pet his hair lightly. What exactly was going on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter! Who's excited for season three coming out in three days?


	6. The Homesick Kid

**_THE FOSTER KID_ **

**_CHAPTER SIX_ **

     “Did his mom tell you about how he jumped off his roof one time thinking that he was going to grow wings and fly away?” Hunk laughed when the topic of Keith and Lance’s study sleepover came up. 

Lance poked a hole in the top of his plastic water bottle with a pencil and squirted water at Hunk’s face saying, “Bad Hunk. I thought we agreed to never discuss this again.”

     “It’s funny because your mom still doesn’t know that that incident was a product of mixing Red Bull and alcohol together,” Katie explained, pulling her laptop out of her backpack as she continued to speak. “Hunk if you need help with AP chemistry, we can meet after school on Friday at your dad’s ice creams shop.”

Lance’s ears perked up at the mention of Hunk’s family’s ice cream shop that they owned. He grinned and held Keith’s hand out of excitement without realizing it, “Keith, I need to take you there! Hunk can get us a discount too since his family owns the place?”

Keith’s whole face lit up in a blush, looking down at Lance’s hand that was clasping his own. He bit his lips so he wouldn’t squeal out in excitement or shock, but that only worked so much before he cracked out, “Yeah that’d be nice!” causing the whole group to turn to him with wide eyes. 

He removed his hand away from Lance’s quickly, trying to get the image out of his mind of what happened this morning. His acting skills were absolutely terrible, but he acted like he rolled over away from Lance in his sleep and ‘woke up naturally’ while turned away from him. Then from there he acted like everything was normal, but everything was in fact not normal at all. 

Was Lance playing with him? Did Lance somehow find out he was gay maybe just from how blatantly obvious it was and was just trying to get a reaction out of him? Or was he gay too and was just trying to test the waters to see if Keith liked him back?

     “Lance, you’re holding his hand,” Katie explained, thankfully turning the attention away from the Keith and towards Lance who sadly but also thankfully took his hand off of Keith’s hand as he awkwardly laughed while staring at the ground, “My bad.”

Katie and Hunk looked at each other with confused expressions, looking at the two boys across from them and then back at each other with their eyebrows raised. Katie quickly pulled her phone out and texted Hunk, ‘Does Lance like Keith?’

     ‘He hasn’t told me anything about that, but it seems kind of obvious. Want me to talk about it with him?’ Hunk replied through text.

     ‘Yeah, and then tell me. I bet I can find out if Keith like Lance.’

     ‘How can you do that?’

     ‘Ice cream shop Friday. If they aren’t already dating by then, I bet you and I could get them together.’

Hunk grinned as he stared down at his phone, looking back up at Lance and Keith who were already talking to each other quickly amongst themselves with blushes on their faces. He looked down again and typed hurriedly, ‘Let’s do this.’

After school, Lance and Keith walked through the practically empty parking lot together after Lance’s practice, Lance’s sweaty self running circles around Keith excitedly as he exclaimed, “It is the last night of our epic two night sleepover! What do you want to do?”

     “Study?” Keith asked, unsure if that was a trick answer or not, set up by the impatient teacher side of Lance. 

Lance groaned and laughed out, still grinning, “No, no! What else do you want to do?”

Keith thought for a moment, looking up at the light blue sky that was airbrushed with stratus clouds. He smiled and thought about what he really wanted to do. What he wanted to do was kiss Lance, hug him, cuddle with him, get drunk with him, wear his hoodie, and so much more. Of course he couldn’t do anything like that either because Lance was obviously not gay and his dad was a cop so they couldn’t get busted for doing anything illegal. 

Keith turned to Lance and shrugged, “You choose. What is my reward for when I learn the Spanish Vocabulary… or what should we do when we give up on me getting an A.”

     “We will not give up on you getting that A,” Lance stated, pointing a finger at Keith with a determined look in his eyes. He softened up a bit though, “But if you want, we could do something you’ve never done before.”

Well that just ruled out everything Keith had in mind and more. He already kissed someone before, hugged, kind of cuddled if cuddling with Shiro when he was younger counted, got drunk, and wore a hoodie that belonged to his ex-boyfriend. To add more to that list though, yes, he had gotten high, arrested, beaten up, and so much more as well. What else was there to do when staying in the same room as another boy?

Finally Keith thought of something, “Is making a fort lame?” 

He turned to Lance, looking for that seal of approval until he was suddenly jerked into a tight hug as Lance sang out, “Making forts are never lame. Let’s build the best fort ever made!”

Later that night, after dinner with Lance’s parents and after they finished building the fort, Lance and Keith laid underneath the sheets that were held up by pillows, lamps, and books, and they studied until Keith was starting to get a hang of the vocabulary. 

     “Worried?” Lance asked, looking at his side of the flashcard. 

Keith thought for a moment then exclaimed enthusiastically, “Preocupado!”

Lance grinned, “Yes! Great job!” He hi-fived Keith and asked again, “Amazed?”

     “Asombrado,” Keith smirked. “I got these down.”

He took the flashcards from Lance’s hand and sat them down, saying as smoothly as he could though it came out more whiny than anything, “Can we stop now? I’m going to get at least a B which is a great start! I want to talk about something besides Spanish feelings.”

Lance sighed, “What exactly do you want to talk about besides Spanish feelings?” 

Keith shrugged, leaning closer towards Lance in a tired daze, “My… feel-!” he stopped himself, eyes widening when he realized how close to Lance he was, how close their lips were. He quickly rocked back a bit to put distance between their faces as he stuttered out an excuse, “Or we can talk about-!”

     “No, let’s talk about your feelings,” Lance said, lips looking like they were in a frown though it seemed like he was just being more serious at the moment than anything else. 

Keith didn’t want to talk about his feelings. Why did he even say that? Was he that tired and drowsy to literally start flirting with Lance like that? He didn’t want to ruin this relationship… He didn’t want to tell Lance how he really felt inside, but he also couldn’t say no to Lance. How was he going to get out of this?

He looked down and muttered out, “Don’t I always talk about my feelings though? Tell me more about you.”

Lance laughed a little, “You tell me about you, but I still don’t know how you feel about any of it.” He looked up at Keith with a smile, “So what do you want to know? My deepest darkest secret?”

     “That would be great, but I feel like you’re joking,” Keith said, not understanding Lance’s sarcasm there. 

Lance smiled and laid back, his head landing on the body pillow that was laid down to make their makeshift bed in the pillow fort. He sighed and said, “Fine, then I guess. I don't exactly have a deep dark secret, but sometimes I feel like I’m that one annoying friend that everyone hates but has to be nice to because they have no choice.”

Keith was planning to lay down next to Lance, but as soon as he said those words, Keith froze in his spot, staring down at Lance. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly opened as he thought about what Lance said. Did he seriously think that way? Someone that was as confident and easy going as him felt like he was annoying and a burden to his friends?”

     “That’s not true…” Keith muttered out, voice shaking slightly as a rapid fire of thoughts kept spinning around quickly in his head. “I don’t hate you.”

Lance gave a half smile, raising his eyebrows a little as he said, “Thanks Keith… But you haven’t exactly gotten to know me yet.”

Keith shook his head, “No, the reason I don’t hate you is because I did get to know you. Trust me, I am a very cautious of people, and I didn’t want to be friends with you at first, but I couldn’t stop myself. You just have something about you that I could… trust easily. If I’m nice to you by choice, then everyone is nice to you by choice,” Keith smiled and finally laid down next to Lance, turning to him, “You are perfect Lance.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he looked up at the blanket above them, the light of Lance’s room shining through it and making his panicked expression visible. Lance was quiet, too quiet for Keith to feel calm now. If that wasn’t gay, then he might as well kiss Lance right now and get away with it as being completely platonic. He couldn’t think about any metaphors past a kiss right now or else he would get a hard on. 

Lance laughed, pulling Keith down from his thoughts. Keith stared to Lance as he finally showed a reaction to his words, “Well that is officially the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” It was his turn to look at the blanket above them now, “I don’t know why I’m so insecure about this all. It really is just trivial to worry about it.”

     “No it’s not,” Keith said, now getting ready to push his limits with what could pass off as still hetero in Lance’s book. He placed his hand on Lance’s hand and said, “Insecurities come and go whether we want them or not. The only thing we can choose is whether to bottle it all up or not, and I will be here to listen and help you as much as I can if you ever need someone to talk to.”

Lance looked down at their hands, looking back up at Keith before he muttered out, “Keith… Are you gay?”

His face was red and his chest was moving up and down along with his heartbeat, giving away the fact that his heart was beating fast even though he wasn’t the one being asked the serious question. Keith wasn’t calm enough now to be able to see a hopefulness in Lance’s eyes though. No, he took that as fear. What guy wouldn’t fear having another guy in bed with him that was holding his hand end up being gay? Keith quickly got up, “I have to take a shower.”

     “Wait, Keith,” Lance watched as Keith got up and excited their fort. 

He followed him out, grabbing Keith’s jacket as he shouted out quickly, his words blending together into one, “Keith I’m not going to get mad or anything!" he looked down and quickly tried to backtrack his accusation, "A-And you don’t seem gay… I was just wondering.”

Keith turned around, eyes glossy as if he was about to cry though his stance was showing anything but him about to break down. He looked like he was about ready to fight Lance. He huffed and said in a trembling voice and a glare in his eyes, “Why would you even wonder about it? It’s not even your business!”

     “Ok…” Lance motioned for Keith to calm down, “Keith it’s fine," he sighed, “Look, if it makes you feel any better, I like guys? I’m not coming out; everyone knows this. I won’t make a pass on you or anything, I swear. I just thought you should know."

Keith’s eyes widened a bit, though it still looked like he was glaring in Lance’s point of view, “You are gay?”

Lance shook his head, laughing a little as he stared off to the side, “Not gay. Bisexual,” he smiled and ran his fingers through his hair, “I mainly flirt with girls cause it is easier, but some guys are an exception.”

     “So…” Keith started, looking down and biting his lip before he eventually said. “I’m gay. Completely gay, I don’t like girls.”

Lance laughed a little, letting out a sigh of relief, “Ok, that is good to know.” His eyes widened a bit, “And I won’t tell anyone I swear! It’s a secret between you and me.”

Keith wrapped his arms around himself in a hug to comfort him as he said all of these things that he couldn’t even tell Shiro yet. Shiro didn’t even know he was gay. Keith kept his gaze down at the ground, “It wasn’t always a secret… I just don’t want Shiro finding out about it or it being a problem again.”

     “A problem?” Lance asked, now more worried than he already was. 

Keith nodded his head, “It was my fault it was a problem. I don’t want to get into everything that happened, but I just don’t want to repeat it again.”

Lance smiled and placed his hand on Keith’s shoulder, “I will make sure you are happy here.”

Keith took his shower and changed into his pjs only to find that Lance sneaked into the bathroom when he was in the shower to replace his leather jacket with a light hoodie to sleep in. It was a lot less hot and more comfortable to wear so Keith was thankful for that. 

They went over his flashcards one more time before going to bed in their fort, covered in blankets and pillows of all kinds gathered from around Lance’s house. Keith fell asleep almost immediately, turning over into Lance’s arms in a matter of minutes. Lance gladly wrapped his arms around Keith, nuzzling his cheek against Keith’s damp hair as he took in his scent. He wanted nothing more than to keep Keith say in his arms forever until he was out of the foster care system and even after that. He never wanted Keith to leave. 

On Friday after school and a day after the test, Katie, Hunk, Lance, and Keith all drove over to Hunk’s family’s ice cream place to either study or just hang out. Katie and Hunk were there to study and Lance and Keith were there to eat the ice cream, but Katie and Hunk were also secretly on a mission to get the two of them together. 

     “Do you have the diversion to separate them temporarily?” Katie whispered to Hunk as she peered at Lance and Keith who were talking at their own separate table. 

They were all four originally at the same table, but Katie kicked them out saying that they were too much of a distraction for Hunk to study. Her real reasons were just so she could talk about them though while they were away. 

Hunk looked to the booth that Keith and Lance were sitting at, watching them laugh and blush before he turned back around and said, “Are you sure the two of them aren’t already together?”

     “Wouldn’t Lance tell you about it if that was the case?” Katie asked. 

Hunk nodded his head slowly, “Good point. Ok, yeah, I have the diversion. Everything is ready to go, but you need to help me finish this worksheet before anything happens. I swear, I am never skipping this class again.”

     “You say that every time,” Pidge groaned. 

At the booth where Lance and Keith were sitting at and talking, Lance asked, “So did you get your test results back for the test?”

Keith grinned and looked down, “I actually got it back today.”

     “And?” Lance leaned closer to him, sitting on the same side of the booth as him to be able to get close enough to let Keith know he was leaning in. 

Keith looked up again and shouted out, “I got a ninety! I just missed the word hermoso… I thought it meant funny?” 

Lance laughed awkwardly, backing away a bit, “I mean, it does in Cuban. Does it not mean that in Spanish? That’s unfair, I thought it was that way on the list.”

     “I’d fight Senior teacher about it, but this is the first time I’ve ever passed a test, so I’m fine!” he exclaimed, hugging Lance. “Thank you so much.. I owe you so much.”

Lance hugged Keith back, “Just don’t tell anyone about the embarrassing stories my mom tells you and we have a deal.”

     “Deal!” Keith laughed, leaning on Lance’s shoulder. “We should definitely have more sleepovers though. They are fun and it would be even better to not have to study while at your house too.”

A blush spread across Lance’s face and he nodded his head quickly, “I would absolutely love that.” His eyes widened as he remember something though, “Hey, any news on Shiro and Allura adopting you? Is anything set in stone yet?”

Keith’s smile faded as he looked down and shook his head, “I tried to talk to Shiro about it and he keeps avoiding the topic. He told me not to say anything to Allura yet, which means he hasn’t even gotten around to telling her. I just wonder why he is waiting so long.”

     “Oh…” Lance sighed, “Well it’s only been two days, don’t worry. I’m sure you are going to be adopted by next semester. Hell, maybe even next month!” 

Keith laughed, “It takes a little longer than that, but I really do hope so…”

     “Don’t worry,” Lance placed his hand over Keith’s hand that was resting on the table. “You are a great kid that is impossible to say no to! And remember our back-up plan?”

Keith smiled and nodded his head, “Keith McClain.”

     “Keith McClain,” Lance grinned, his face matching Keith’s in its red hue. “It has a nice ring to it.”

Suddenly, they were interrupted by Hunk slamming his hand on their booth table and saying, “Lance, I need help with my truck! Can you just help me get the engine running again? It’s in the back parking lot and oh my gosh, my dad’s gonna kill me!”

     “Aren’t you really good at that kind of stuff though?” Lance asked, begging Hunk with his eyes to let him stay with Keith. 

It was true though, Hunk was more skilled than all of them at fixing trucks, having a natural talent to be able to get anything running in under thirty minutes. He looked to Katie with a panicked look, not being a very good liar until her death stare made him turn back around and say, “Lance I need someone to press the pedal for me as I test something out and Katie is too short.”

Lance raised an eyebrow, wondering what his two friends were up to. Didn't they know how much he didn’t want to be dragged away from Keith at the moment? He was about to say no again until Keith spoke up, “I can help you out if you want.”

     “What?!” both he and Hunk yelled out, followed by Lance coughing a little and muttering an apology while Hunk shouted out in a panicked voice, “I need Lance, not you, sorry! You are short like Katie and I need someone with long spider legs like Lance.”

     “Hunk, what the heck?” Lance shouted out, embarrassed. He sighed and leaned onto Keith a bit to mutter out, “I’m just going to press the pedal for Hunk and hopefully run him over in the process. I’ll be back in five minutes, ok?”

Hunk stood there for a moment, expecting Lance to give Keith a goodbye kiss there for a brief moment before he got up and called for Hunk to follow him outside and show him to where his car was. Hunk gave Katie a ‘thumbs up’ sign for a moment before he exited and left the two alone. 

Keith pulled out his phone to play a game of pac-man before Katie slid into the booth in the seat across from him and said, “So… Can I ask you a quick question?”

     “Sure?” Keith asked wearily. He placed his phone into his pocket and leaned back a bit, “What is it?”

Katie smiled, “You like Lance, right?”

     “What?” Keith stuttered out, grabbing at the table to keep himself from freaking out just yet. 

Katie leaned back a bit, “It’s fine, you can tell me. I know you are gay.”

Keith looked around the people around them in the ice cream shop, eyes wide with panic as he asked under his breath, “Did he tell you?.. I-I told him not tell anyone.”

He thought he was much louder than he really was when he asked that, thinking Katie was answering him when she said, “Yeah, anyways, I don’t normally dabble around in relationship stuff, but you two are so obvious, so I’m going to fix it.”

Keith started to get up, looking around at the faces that were staring in his direction from Katie speaking too loud for his comfort. Katie looked up at him and said, “I won’t tell Lance. Do you like him?”

He glared down at Katie, “You won't tell Lance? How can I believe any of you? I can’t believe he told you that! That was supposed to be a secret!”

     “That you were gay? No one told me, I just assumed-!” she started to explain, but Keith slammed his fist down on the table and shouted out, “Shut up!”

The whole shop full of teenagers were staring at them now, but their booth already had their attention when Katie said the word gay when looking up at Keith. He watched as tables of kids started muttering about him as they stared up at him. He looked down at Katie with a glare and grabbed his backpack saying, “This is why I’m glad I’m a foster kid, so I can leave places when I need to.”

    “Keith wait!” she yelled, immediately getting up to chase after him, regretting her decisions of being so blunt about everything. She knew already that that was a really stupid approach on her part. 

Keith walked quickly around the building to where Hunk said his car was, turning the corner to see Lance and Hunk talking near the hood of Hunk’s car that was closed. Was Lance now telling Hunk about him being gay?

Lance turned around when he heard Keith’s angry footsteps coming towards him. He smiled, “Hey Keith!” 

He saw Keith’s face and was about to ask him what was wrong until Keith swung his fist at him and punched his face, turning it completely to the side and causing Lance to stumble back a bit. Lance was stunned for a moment, resting his hand on his cheek for a second as he looked up at Keith and asked, “What the hell was that for, Keith? What’s going on with you?”

Katie ran in between them quickly and shouted out, “There is a misunderstanding going on, and you two need to-!”

She was interrupted by Keith shouting out, “No wonder why everyone thinks you’re annoying and hates you! You can’t keep anything to yourself, can you?”

Lance’s eyes narrowed and he stepped forward, “What are you doing? That was supposed to be between us!”

     “Yeah well a lot of stuff was supposed to be just between us,” Keith stated, balling his hands up into fists again. 

Katie was about to speak again to explain what was going on until Lance swung right over her head to punch Keith in this face. Keith stepped back in time, already used to guys trying to punch him. He put his hands up in a fighting stance as Lance ran at him and aimed to punch him again. He was successful this time, punching Keith in the eye and pushing him to the ground. 

Just as he got on top of Keith, straddling his stomach as he raised his fist in the air again, a group of kids walked around to the back, hollering out that there was a fight happening. Lance looked at them for a moment, stunned at the new attention and also afraid that his dad was going to find about this, being a cop that usually had to break up the fights between teens with raging hormones. He never expected he would become one of those kinds of teens with Keith - at least, this wasn’t the way he was expecting their hormones to clash and mix finally. 

One of the kid’s raised their phone up to start videoing the fight when Lance started to get off of Keith, not wanting to fight where footage was going to be taken and possibly shown to his dad. Just as he was getting off though, Keith punched him as hard as he could, shoving his face down into the concrete as he switched their places and was now straddling Lance. 

Keith, eyes full of anger screamed out, “You knew I didn’t want anyone to know yet you told everyone!”

Lance grabbed Keith’s air and pulled his head back, punching him in the face again as hard as he could, hitting his nose and causing it to start bleeding only a few seconds later. Keith sniffled and wrapped his hands around Lance’s neck. 

The fight was ended when Hunk finally stepped in and pulled Keith off of Lance, shouting at the both of them, “You two are going to cause bad publicity for my family’s shop by fighting here. Now stop before you kill each other!”

Keith kicked Hunk in the legs and scrambled away from him, taking in deep breaths through his mouths as he wiped the blood away from his nose, though it only smeared across his face to his cheek. He was glaring at Lance as he got up, both boys ripping each other to shreds in their minds as they stared at each other. 

The small crowd of bored teens started to disappear when Lance muttered out, “You are crazy…”

Keith bit his lip, tears stinging in his dry eyes as he replied back in more of a cry than anything intimidating, “And you are just like the others…”

     “The others?” Lance asked, immediately being held back by Hunk and Katie when they sensed him about to walk over to Keith again and fight him. He shouted out from where he was being held though, “You deserved everything they did, because you treat people like shit!”

     “Lance, be quiet!” Katie said, clasping a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. “Calm down, both of you and let’s talk this out.”

     “No,” Keith said, shaking his head and turning around, tears now falling heavily from his eyes. “I’m done with this place.”

He walked away, ignoring the protests Katie and Hunk were calling after him. They were afraid to leave Lance though, knowing that Lance was either going to run after him and try to fight him again or start crying. They chose their friend that they knew longer of course. 

Keith walked until he knew he was lost again, staring at the area around him as he walked along the sidewalk. If he hadn’t already been sobbing from everything that had just happened, the frustration of being stupid enough to get lost again was his breaking point. He shouted out in agony, voice cracking and growing tired just from that one long shout that didn’t even make a dint into his stress and emotions. 

He was about to pull out his phone to try to work the gps on there when he heard a car slow down beside him and pull over on the side of the road. His heart beat faster as his whole body went into panic mode. Was someone about to kidnap him? Actually, that didn’t sound so bad right now, but he wanted to at least fight Lance until he was unconscious before that happened. 

Keith turned around quickly, expecting either a white van or Lance’s truck when instead, he saw a police car right behind him. His eyes widened and he turned back around, starting to walk away as the door opened and someone got out. He hated cops. He hated everything about cops. What was he doing wrong? He wasn’t doing anything wrong, was he, so what did the cop want to do with him? 

     “Keith!” he heard the cop call out, causing him to stop in his B-line down the sidewalk away from him. 

Keith turned around to the voice that belonged to Shiro, eyes wide with fear and full of tears when he stared at Shiro in his cop uniform. Something in him wanted to run away from Shiro, hating the cop uniform on him and hating the idea of acting like such a child in front of him, but something stronger in him made him run towards him, sobbing out as he headbutt Shiro in the chest and wrapped his arms around him. 

He started to cry uncontrollably as Shiro wrapped his arms around him as well and asked, confused, “Keith what happened? Are you ok? ...Your nose is bleeding, did you get into a fight?”

Keith kept crying. 

Worried, Shiro kept asking questions, “Where is Lance? He was supposed to be your ride home. Where is he?”

     “Stop asking so many fucking questions…” Keith muttered out, tightening his grip around Shiro’s waist. “I just want to go home.”

Shiro felt his heart skip a beat, “Home?” Was Keith possibly already thinking about this place and his and Allura’s house as home? He felt so happy even though this was a tough way to find out how Keith felt about staying with him. He was about to ask what Keith meant by ‘home’ just to double check before he got excited about this thought when Keith spoke up and answered his first question. 

Keith nodded his head, “I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go back to Texas”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did everyone have fun watching Voltron Season 3? 
> 
> Comment for next chapter!


	7. The Weak Kid

**_THE FOSTER KID_ **

**_CHAPTER SEVEN_ **

     “Keith talk to me,” Shiro finally said, now ten minutes into their drive filled with cold silence. 

He had to be on patrol for the next thirty minutes before being able to go back home, and he was not letting Keith get out of the car until he personally took him back to the house and watched him closely. He loved Keith, but he couldn’t trust him to be alone at the moment in his condition. He was still crying, though he had stopped audibly sobbing and begging Shiro to let him go back to Texas. 

Keith shook his head, head pressed up against the window, “I don’t want to talk, I just want to leave.”

     “Well you aren’t allowed to leave, so pick something else,” Shiro stated dryly, looking out the window for Lance, ready to pull over and put him in the back of the cop car for doing this to Keith. He was going to show that kid a real fight by giving him his first ever mug shot in front of his dad. He would love to beat him up until he promised never to hurt Keith again just like he used to do to people that tried to mess with Keith when they were younger, but he just couldn't do stuff like that anymore. 

He gripped the steering wheel so hard until his knuckles turned white, unable to control his anger before he shouted out, “Why would he punch you though? Who started it? What could you possibly have done to deserve a bloody nose and a black eye like that? I thought you two were friends!”

Keith groaned and sniffled, looking out the window, “I’m used to this. I just don’t want to be around on Monday when everyone…” he paused, closing his eyes as he imagined how everyone was going to know him as the ‘twink’ or the gay kid thanks to Lance talking about it to anyone with ears. His hands curled tightly around his knees as he muttered out, “Can I not go to school for a while?” 

     “How long is a while?”

Keith shrugged, “Until I am taken away to my next family.”

Shiro swallowed his breath, holding in whatever air was left in his mouth after that as he thought about what Keith said. What was he supposed to say to that? Allura was held up with work and he hadn’t gotten around to asking her about them adopting yet. It wasn’t a surprise that Keith was losing hope on them adopting him, and no matter what he was able to say now, it would all just sound like a sorry excuse. 

     “Keith you have to go to school,” was all he managed to say, trying to change the subject. 

He heard a sniffle come from Keith before he replied, “Ok, whatever.”

Was that it? No yelling, no protest, no fit? Was Keith alright? No, of course he wasn’t alright. He just hoped he didn’t give up on anything yet in a dangerous sense. They drove for the next thirty minutes in silence, Keith sniffling every few seconds while Shiro sighed and opened his mouth to speak the same amount of times. Every attempt to talk to Keith was going to be a failure because there was nothing he could think of to talk about that wouldn't upset Keith. 

Finally though, they drove home. When Shiro parked in the driveway, he sighed and said, “Keith, can you tell me what happened with Lance?”

Keith shook his head, “Nothing happened.”

     “The bloody nose you are sporting says otherwise,” Shiro muttered, turning to Keith with wide eyes full of worry. “Remember when you used to tell me everything? What happened? I left, but I’m still the same. You can trust me.”

Keith crossed his arms, “I can’t trust anyone.”

     “I’m not anyone though,” Shiro argued, feeling hurt that Keith really felt this way. “You and I have the same past. We had the same future for a while but I made sure I would be someone that could help you have a better one, and I did that. I just don’t know if I would do it again if I knew that this was how we would become.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he turned to Shiro, “What are you saying? You have a life, which is more than any orphan out of foster care could ever wish for! Why would you throw it away just because I’m messed up?”

Shiro shook his head, looking down, “You aren’t messed up Keith… Why do you keep saying that about yourself? What is so messed up about you?”

     “Well for starters I’m fucking gay!” Keith snapped, tears falling from his eyes again. His bottom lip trembled and he bit it quickly, “Everyone found out about it today, because Lance told them all. I thought I could trust Lance, but I was obviously wrong.”

He buried his head into his hands and grabbed at his hair, wanting to pull it out until he passed out or died, anything to escape this harsh reality he let himself believe wouldn’t happen for just a moment. He whole body ached and trembled as he cried out, “I’m just sick of everything. I hate everyone! You are the only person I’ve ever known that hasn’t treated me like absolute shit. When people find out I'm gay they do terrible things to me. Shiro I hated it when you left me, I did, I-!”

He was cut off by Shiro reaching over the console in between them both to hug him and say, “Keith, I'm happy you told me about you being gay. I know now how hard it was for you to probably tell me, but you will never have to worry about me treating you any different because I love you no matter what, but... I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a long time, but something happened to you when I left, right? When I came to visit for holidays or volunteer work, I noticed you slowly becoming… more withdrawn from everything. I wrote it off as just you being a pre-teen and then a teen at the times, but now I think… is it something else?” He sighed and held Keith closer, "You don't have to tell me if you don't feel comfortable, but you just scare me when you say that people did horrible things to you when they found out you were gay."

Keith leaned into Shiro’s chest and opened his eyes that were now dry, unable to produce anymore tears for today hopefully at least. He took a deep breath that shook as he inhaled and begged for him to exhale again. He did, letting it out slowly before he swallowed his spit and finally replied to Shiro, “I was raped.” He closed his eyes and bit his lip, forcing himself to keep talking to explain himself more, “It was just once and a few months after you left. I was always that one brat in the group home that did whatever he wanted, because I knew you were always there to protect me… I just realized soon after you left that you being there was the only thing that kept me from being hurt.”

Shiro fingers dug into Keith’s arm without him thinking about it, his eyebrows furrowing as he wrapped his arms tighter around Keith and brought him even closer than he already. He grit his teeth and growled out, “Who did that to you?” 

Keith sniffled and shrugged, “I don’t know, I was too young and it happened in my room at night. I just… I don’t want to talk about it, ok? I just told you, because… well I don’t even know why I told you.”

     “I’m glad you told me,” Shiro replied, still hugging Keith tightly. “I wish I could kill whoever did that to you. I can’t say I wouldn’t have if you did know who did it.” He paused for a moment, taking a quick breath before saying, “Keith, I’m never letting you go back into foster care. I’m never letting you leave my protection ever again, ok?”

Keith pushed himself away from Shiro lightly, looking out the window at their garage as he muttered out, “But what happens when I have to go back to foster care?”

Shiro looked down, “You are never going back there again. Allura will understand. I’m telling her right now that we are adopting you, ok? You will be part of our family and always under my protection from now on. I’m…” He wrapped his arms around Keith, “I will never be able to forgive myself for not be able to stop the horrible things that happened to you when I left.”

     “It wasn’t your fault,” Keith sniffled, nose buried into Shiro’s shoulder as he waited for him to let go of him. “And you really don’t have to adopt me if you don’t-!”

     “I’m adopting you,” Shiro stated again in a demanding tone. He let go of Keith to stare him in the eyes and smile as he continued to say, “You will be my son on the papers, but please never call me dad, ok? That will make me sound so old.”

Keith laughed, “I promise I won’t. I think we should tell Allura first if you are sure you actually want to adopt me. If you are just saying that to make me feel better, please take it back now before I get too happy. You've seen how much trouble it can be to take care of me so think about it carefully.”

Shiro shook his head, opening up the car door, “Never taking it back! She’s home, so let’s tell her together.”

Once Keith got out of the car, Shiro took his hand and dragged him into the house, announcing their arrival when he opened up the door by shouting out, “Allura, I’m home with Keith! We have something important to tell you!”

Keith was following Shiro into the living room when they suddenly heard a big popping sound as Allura jumped out from behind a door and shouted, “Surprise!” as confetti flew up in the air. 

Shiro and Keith both stopped in a shock and mild confusion at what Allura was possibly doing hiding behind a door and jumping out at them with a goofy smile on her face. Was it someone’s birthday? Shiro didn’t know his birthday and Keith’s birthday wasn’t for another month. Was it her birthday? Was it their anniversary? Keith looked to Shiro, wondering with wide eyes full of fear if Shiro forgot about it. He was going to have to get out of the house quickly if that was the case. 

Allura stared at their faces for a moment before sighing and saying, “I didn’t think this through. I didn’t know how to tell Shiro, but I’m glad both of you are here at the same time. I have some news to tell you.” She stared at Keith and then back at Shiro, raising an eyebrow as she said with a grin, “Both of you may need to sit down.”

     “Did you get a promotion?” Shiro asked, sitting down on the living room couch and asking more questions. “Is that even possible though with you already being the CEO of your father’s company?”

Allura laughed, “I’m already as high as I can get until he dies, which let’s hope that doesn’t happen any time soon.” 

Keith had a hard time understanding her British accent sometimes, but when she was rambling on like this, it almost made it impossible to make out any of the words in her sloppily thrown together sentences. He leaned over in anticipation and asked, “So what is going on?”

Shiro looked to Keith for a brief moment before saying as well, “We also have news we want to tell you. But is everything ok?”

Allura’s smile faded and she sat up straight, clasping her hands together and resting them on top of her folded legs as she finally gave them an answer, “Ok, I just found out this Wednesday so I haven’t gotten a chance to see how far along I am, but… I’m pregnant.”

Keith’s heart felt like it stopped beating. He couldn’t feel his hands or his legs; he could only feel disappointment because he knew what this meant. Allura was going to have a baby. Babies were expensive and they were a newlywed couple. It was going to be hard adopting a teenager right off the bat in a marriage, but to adopt a teenager and have a kid at the same time during your first year of being married? That was not something that would be enjoyable. He knew that. He also knew which was going to win if one had to go. And he knew that he was going to have to stop acting like a brat all the time and accept what he was and what needed to be done. 

Shiro probably wasn’t even able to enjoy the announcement of having a kid because of him worrying about Keith, so Keith made sure to put up a believable act to Shiro that he was not to be worried about. He got up and hugged Allura, grinning and saying, “That is so awesome! When are you seeing the doctor? My bet is it’s going to be a boy, and if it is, please name it after me!”

Allura smiled and hugged Keith back, “I’m so happy you’re happy!”

Shiro finally reacted now that he saw Keith being happy. He join them in the group hug and cried out, “I can’t believe this is happening! We are going to be a family, Allura!”

Keith managed to get out of the hug, watching the two as they hugged and celebrated with each other over what they managed to do. Keith was sad, but couldn’t help but smile, knowing how much Shiro always wanted a real family. Now he was finally getting one. 

After a few minutes, Keith started to get up to go to his room with a plan to stare at the ceiling for the next couple of hours and contemplate the meaning of his life until Shiro called out to him, “Hey Keith, where are you going?”

     “To wash blood off my face,” Keith smiled and did a waving motion around his face as if to interpret his words. 

Allura tilted her head in confusion though she was still smiling, “How did you get blood on your face?” she turned to Shiro, “You said you two had something to tell me. It is nothing bad is it?”

Shiro’s eyes widened as he started to stutter out an answer, but Keith beat him to it, knowing that now was not the time to tell her that Shiro made the decision to adopt him. There was never going to be a good time for that anymore. 

     “Actually, we were just going to tell you that I had a fight in the parking lot and I’m going back to Texas soon,” Keith blurted out, nodding his head though the words made him feel sick to his stomach. 

Both Shiro and Allura’s eyes widened as they both asked in worry, “What?”

Shiro gave Keith a pleading stare as he said, “That wasn’t it. What are you saying?”

     “I’m going back to Texas, because I want to. It was nothing on you guys. I just also did better in school there,” Keith smiled, wondering if they could tell that everything he had just said was the farthest he had ever strayed from the truth. He laughed a little and backed out of the room, “Hey Shiro, I’m gonna go call Lance actually and apologize about the fight. I better not burn bridges right? If he picks me up so we can talk in person, I’ll text you.”

Shiro quickly got up, “Keith wait!” 

He started to get up and walk after Keith, but Keith quickly ran upstairs to his room, keeping a smile on his face until he shut the door and locked it, now alone to his racing thoughts and new anxiety within him. He wasn’t going to call Lance… but he was going to leave.

He was only going to be gone temporarily. He just needed to clear his head away from here and there was only one place he knew were to do that at. 

Around forty-five minutes later, Keith was finally at Lance’s secret hideout, sitting on the lawn chairs sat down on the sloppily nailed together planks of wood. He stared at the sun as it set, smiling as he thought about how New Mexico with Shiro had been the most fun he had had in years even though it was short lived. Lance was perhaps the closest he had gotten to anyone in a long time besides Shiro… but good things never lasted for him. Why did he think things were going to change? 

He sighed, playing with his hands and staring at the sun until he heard a knock on the tree behind him. His eyes widened and he quickly turned his head to see Lance standing there behind him. His heart jumped out of his chest and he quickly got up out of his seat, “Sorry, I’m leaving now.”

     “What were you doing in my hideout anyway?” Lance asked, arms crossed as he stared down at Keith. He had a frown on his face and there was still blood from his busted lip, most likely meaning that he hadn’t been at home yet. 

He sat down in the chair next to Keith and asked, “Did you walk straight here? I’m surprised you didn’t get lost.”

     “Shiro brought me home. I left from there,” Keith asked, relaxing a bit in his chair even though his current enemy was sitting next to him. 

Lance nodded his head, “Katie and Hunk told me why you were pissed off. I’m still mad at you for throwing punches instead of just talking to me, but I want you to know that I didn’t tell anyone. Katie just thought you were gay because of how we acted with each other.”

     “But she said she knew I was gay.”

Lance shrugged, “Katie’s confident. She thought that if she said that, you wouldn’t care and just come clean about it, but that wasn’t the case.”

     “So I fought you for no reason?” Keith asked, looking to Lance with wide eyes. 

Lance didn’t look back at him, only staring forward at the setting sun as he nodded his head coldly, “Yep.”

Keith felt sick in his stomach, his heart beating hard as he asked, “Do you hate me now?”

He watched as Lance shook his head, “No. I guess I would get pissed off and do the same thing you did if I thought someone was telling the whole school I was gay after I specifically told them not to.”

     “Lance I’m sorry I ever doubted you though,” Keith said, biting his lip as it trembled out of nervousness. “You are one of the only people I’ve ever been able to trust, and I still need to get used to that. I think I just need to get used to kind people in general.”

Lance crossed his arms, “You do,” he sighed and turned to Keith. “Katie and Hunk want to apologize to you too for making you feel like you were betrayed, so if they come up to you at school, that’s why.”

Keith nodded his head slowly, “I guess I should apologize to them too for freaking out as well. Katie didn't deserve to be yelled at and I shouldn't have caused a scene at Hunk's family's place." He took a deep breath and let it all out a few seconds later, letting that exhale slowly release until he knew what else to say, "Well now that that is sorted out… Are you ok? I’m not that good at fighting, but it probably still hurts to get punched no matter what.”

     “Oh yeah, you busted my lip!” Lance exclaimed, pointing to his lip and grinning. “I mean I try my best to have a perfect face, but it looks kind of cool doesn’t it?”

Keith laughed, “Yeah, actually. What does the other guy look like?”

Lance raised an eyebrow at Keith, sporting a half smile as he said, “Oh God,  he's a wreck. He has a black eye, but it just looks like he put a really bad smokey eye on one eye.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he covered up his eye, “It doesn’t actually look like that, does it?”

     “Karma!” Lance laughed, sighing. He turned to look at Keith with his relaxed smile turning into a frown as he finally said what had been on his mind for the past hour and a half, “You don’t have to talk about this, but when you said I was just like the others… did they really hurt you as bad as I did?”

Keith was staring straight forward, not moving or wavering as if he was in a trance, “I shouldn’t have compared you to any of my ex-boyfriends or lovers or whatever you call them. They did things way worse to me than what you would ever think about doing so don't worry about it. .”

     “Like what?” Lance asked, placing his hands under his legs. “If you don’t mind me asking…”

Keith shrugged, “Can I trust you not to tell anyone?”

     “I haven’t told anyone anything about you, I promise!” Lance turned to Keith defensively though his words were only meant to assure him that everything said between them was going to stay between them. 

Keith smiled, “I was just messing with you, but ok I’ll tell you.” He looked down, losing his smile as fast as it appeared, “I’ve had as many boyfriends as places I’ve moved, which is more times than I can count,” he laughed a little though it was disheartened, “Each one of them were terrible; I’m not going to sugar coat it. When they were stressed out because of school or their shitty families, they would use me as a punching bag to let it out, they would… use me in other ways to let out stress too. Even if I didn’t want it."

Keith was hiding his face now, afraid to show Lance the side of him that cried even though he had already seen it more times than what Keith deemed comfortable. What was Lance going to think of him now? He was so weak for letting people use him in ways he could have easily prevented. He never wanted to be seen as a victim. That’s why he was always mean to people so they would never pity him. Now that was going to be all Lance felt for him. 

Sure, he told Shiro about one occurrence just because he wanted to make Shiro feel shitty about leaving him behind even for just a second, but if Shiro knew that Keith let this kind of thing happen to him constantly? He wouldn’t be surprised if Shiro took the excuse of the now mentioned baby to his advantage and get Keith out of the house as quickly as possible. No one wanted their child being born around someone like him. 

He could sense Lance’s hand reaching for his face and he flinched even though he knew that the most it was going to do was to wipe his tears. He just didn’t want to be touched right now. He looked up at Lance with wide eyes and said, “Tell me the truth. What do you think of me? What am I to you?”

Lance’s face turned red, “What are you to me?”

     “Yeah,” Keith nodded his head. “I’m weak in your eyes now, right? I always knew I was, but hearing you say it, you the nicest person I’ve ever met say it to my face, I’ll know it is true. I just need to know before I do anything drastic.”

     “Anything drastic?” Lance’s eyes went wide. He places his hand on Keith’s arm, holding it tight enough to not let him shy away from his touch when he did so. “Keith, you are not weak in my eyes! In fact, I find you even stronger now that I know what people did to you. I would never be able to be mentally sane if anything like that happened to me!”

Keith’s lips were held tightly together, him wanting to argue with Lance but also not wanting to cause a fight that was unnecessary. He shook his head, but Lance kept talking, “Keith, you want to know what you are to me? You want to know how important you are to me?”

     “I do, but-!” Keith started to say, but Lance interrupted him. 

     “I love you, Keith!” He shouted, hand squeezing Keith’s arm hard without realizing it. He had no idea what he was doing until the stress of the build up to this very moment quickly wore off and he was now staring into Keith’s wide and surprised eyes. 

His heart was beating so fast it could break out of his chest if it decided to turn on him and kill him in that moment. He placed his free hand over his heart just to keep Keith from hearing how loud it was. What was Keith thinking? What was Keith going to do next? Keith was doubting himself and he was sad; was now really the best time to confess feelings for him that he wasn’t even sure he possessed for him? 

Sure he liked Keith so much he never left his mind and he always wanted to be with him, but could he call it love yet? He had only known Keith for almost three weeks now… He couldn’t say something like that and be held to it, but all he was wanting was for Keith to feel it for him to. He wanted Keith to love him back even though he wasn’t sure of his own feelings yet. How selfish was that of him to feel? 

He watched as Keith’s surprised look slowly faded into a look of desperation right before Keith clasped his own hand over Lance’s and said, “Then let’s run away together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!


	8. The Runaway Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Seven_ **

     “Runaway?” Lance stuttered out, tilting his head and squinting his eyes in confusion as he tried to process what Keith had just said. “Where did that even come from? I just told you I loved you.”

Keith nodded his head, “Yes, and if you love me, then let’s runaway together.”

     “Again, where is this coming from?” Lance asked, quickly retracting his hand away from Keith. “What happened?”

     “Why so many questions and doubts now that I’m putting your love to the test?” Keith asked, crossing his arms and frowning. “Are you not so sure about your feelings already?”

Lance wasn’t even sure about his feelings from the start, but to run away with Keith based on these sloppily put together feelings? He couldn’t possibly ever think about doing such a thing. He placed his palms flat on the surface of the armrests of the lawn chairs and shook his head, saying, “We can’t just runaway… I have school and soccer practice! And my family and friends! I may love you but I love them too. Keith, just tell me what is going on and I can help you!”

Keith got up, “Actually that was all I needed to hear from you. I don’t know what I was thinking asking you something like that.”

Lance stood up and pushed Keith back down in the lawn chair, “Nope. Keith, I’m not letting you do this kind of thing yet again. Stop running away from things when they go downhill. Just tell me why you want to run away, and I’ll talk you out of it or possibly join you.”

     “Join me?” Keith asked, surprised that Lance was even going that far to help him out. 

Lance nodded his head and replied, “Yeah, I said I love you and I mean it,” Lance held Keith’s hand, hoping Keith couldn't sense how scared he was to be having this kind of conversation about plans to runaway. “So tell me what is going on.”

Keith stared back at the sky that was already free of the sun, cloudy and dark over the tops of the trees he could see over. He sighed and slumped over, answering Lance, “I’m going back to Texas soon… I’m fine leaving Shiro and Allura because I don’t want to be trouble for them, but I don’t want to leave you. Solution? You and I can run away together. We can just live in solitude until both of us are eighteen and don’t have to worry about the law.”

    “And where would money come from? Shelter? Food?” Lance asked, wondering why or how Keith thought his plan was a good idea for even a second. 

Keith shrugged, “I can make money for the both of us and we can live in a hotel for a while.” 

     “But that’s no way to live,” Lance argued, trying to back Keith out of this without scaring him off. 

Keith’s hands were starting to shake though, his mind and body feeling anxious and weary about everything. He shook his head and kept arguing back with Lance, “Allura and Shiro are going to be having a baby! I already told them I was leaving, I can’t just change my mind!”

     “Yes you can,” Lance tried to remain calm. 

     “No I can’t!” Keith snapped. “Tonight I’m leaving no matter what you say or think. I can’t go back to that orphanage and they are going to choose the baby over me no matter what. I… I’m runaway with or without you.”

Lance looked down. The last thing he wanted to do was run away from his family and friends. He couldn’t let Keith runaway on his own though, and it didn’t seem like he was going to be able to convince him to stay anywhere in this town tonight. Was there another way he could go about this? Lance’s eyes widened when he thought of something and he turned to Keith, saying, “Fine, I’m running away with you.”

     “Really?” Keith practically gasped, eyes widening with true shock. Lance agreeing to run away with him was the last thing he expected to happen when he came up with the idea to runaway. 

Lance nodded his head reluctantly, “Yeah. So we leave tonight?”

Keith got up, “Yes. How about we go to your house first to get your stuff and then to my house. Then we can be on the road and no one will truly worry about us until at least Monday when we don’t show up for school.”

Keith was grinning which worried Lance. He always imagined kids crying when they ran away, not happy. Why was Keith so happy to run away from home? To leave… Oh. He wasn’t leaving anything behind. He had nothing to miss. He was running away in hopes that he would find something to someday miss. Lance tried to understand how Keith felt, but every part of him knew that running away was not a good option in any way for both Keith and him. Hopefully with this plan he had in his mind, he would be able to convince Keith sometime tonight that the the best life he could live was right here in New Mexico with Lance and Shiro's family. 

They drove to Lance’s house and he packed his backpack up with his wallet, a blanket, some homework he needed to finish before Monday, and a flashlight, hoping that all this was enough for just one night in the car. The plan was to talk to Keith while he thought that they were getting farther and farther away when really they were just driving a full circle around the town. Hopefully Keith would regret running away by early morning. 

Before leaving, he quickly told his parents that he was spending the night at Hunk’s house and left them, feeling bad for lying even though he knew this was for Keith’s sake. Once he got back into the car again, they hurried back to Keith’s house just so Keith could grab any money he had in his room, some extra clothes, and a knife just in case. He believed that he could survive anything with a knife whether that be an attack, hunger, or boredom. 

Happy with his runaway survival kit, Keith jumped out of the window and hurried to Lance’s truck with a small bag in tow of his things. He hopped into the car and held up his bag, saying, “I have exactly one-hundred dollars! This should last us at least two nights in a crappy hotels. How much do you have?”

Lance shrugged trying to remember how much he took with him. He turned to Keith and guessed the amount, “Maybe two-hundred? I’ll pay for gas and we can live in my car. How does that sound?”

     “Perfect,” Keith grinned, surprising Lance with that answer - he thought he would be opposed to the idea. Keith leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder, “Anywhere is fine as long as it is with you.”

Lance couldn’t help but turn red at that, trying to keep his eyes on the road and drive even as Keith was nuzzling into his shoulder, requesting for attention in the most inappropriate of moments. 

They drove for two hours before Keith yawned for the first time and Lance had long since grown tired. It wasn’t safe for him to be driving on a freeway in his state, so he pulled off onto the nearest exit just to rest his eyes for a bit, hoping that Keith fell asleep while he did that so he could just start driving back in the direction of their town. 

He stopped in the parking lot of a motel, closing his eyes for just a few seconds before he felt awake again. Sadly though, that feeling of alertness never came back no matter how hard he tried to wake his brain up again. 

He felt a hand on his own, “Do you want to sleep in this motel? I have money to pay for a night.”

     “What?” he looked to Keith and then to the motel in front of them, sighing a bit after he realized what Keith was talking about and continued to speak, “Oh, no, I can keep driving.”

     “That’s not safe,” Keith argued, “I may want to run away from everything, but dying isn’t an option in my mind at the moment.”

Lance looked to him with a half smile, “Me neither, I guess.”

     “So let’s sleep in a motel for the night,” Keith smiled, pulling his wallet out of his bag and holding it up. “Grab whatever you feel like you’ll need tonight and I’ll check us in, ok?”

Lance nodded his head tiredly and smiled, “Ok.”

He told his parents he was going to be gone for a night, so it wouldn’t be too alarming if he just showed up again mid day tomorrow. This plan was a lot better than him getting back out on the road again in a drowsy state and crashing and never coming back home. 

When they checked in and got to their rooms, Keith immediately claimed his spot on the left side of the bed by flopping down on it. He laughed a little and said, “This place is so crappy but I love the sensation of freedom, don’t you?”

     “It’s fun, but don’t you kind of miss home?”

     “Never had one,” Keith answered, grinning as if that was something to his advantage. He rolled his eyes and frowned, looking to Lance with a genuine stare, “You aren’t second guessing running away are you? Because I’m fine if you want to just leave me here and go back home.”

     “No, no!” Lance quickly replied, eyes widened as he walked the rest of the way to the bed and sat down next to Keith. “I go where you go. I’m not leaving you anywhere.”

Keith let out a sigh of relief filled with breath he didn’t even know he was holding in. He smiled and positioned his body pointing towards Lance, “I’m so glad I’m with you. You are the first person I’ve ever wanted to do something like this with, but you can back out at any time if you want.”

     “Back out? Me? Never,” Lance argued defensively, leaning back on the bed. “What I am ready to do is go to sleep.”

Keith slumped forward and stared at the ground for a whole minute after he said that, having a staring contest with the floor and muttering to himself every so often. Lance took notice halfway into that minute and watched him. After a while of Keith not breaking out of the trance though, Lance finally put a hand on his back and said, “Hey man, are you ok?”

     “Me?” Keith quickly looked up with a red face and wide eyes. He frowned and shook his head, “To be honest, I’m not.”

Was he not ok because he was starting to miss Shiro? Lance would be so happy if that was the case. Then they could just decide to go back home in the morning and everything would be just fine again. 

     “You’re not?” Lance repeated, trying not to sound hopeful when he said those words. 

Keith nodded his head. He bit his lip and stared off to the side as he muttered out, “There is something I want to show you…”

Oh so this wasn’t about missing home… Lance felt a little disappointed, but his heart still kept racing due to the new mystery of what Keith could possibly want to show him. He leaned forward a bit, “What is it?”

     “Well…” Keith started off, looking down at the ground and slowly taking off his jacket. “I haven’t done anything in a few days, but I just wanted to put everything out there with you so there are no secrets between us. We are running away together; we kind of have to trust each other.”

Lance felt something in him jump when Keith said those words, immediately being filled with euphoria when he thought more about what Keith said. Keith was going to trust him? The realization hit him that they really were running away together. They really were alone together and needed to trust each other completely if everything was going to work out fine. Though he was worried about this whole situation, he felt so happy about the fact that he was the lucky chosen one to get to be the person Keith trusted the most at the moment. He wanted to keep it this way even if he was trying to get Keith to go back home and be happy with Shiro as his family again. 

He watched as Keith took off his jacket and let it sit on the bedside table before holding his arms out to Lance and explaining to him, “If it grosses you out you can look away. I do this a lot… It’s a problem, I know, but every single time I say I’m going to stop, something happens and I can’t. ”

Lance looked down at Keith scars, honestly having expected this from him when Keith first refused to take off his jacket during their sleepover. He didn’t say anything about it before because he knew how it felt to be interrogated for those sort of things. He didn’t say anything now either because he also knew how it felt to watch the reaction of those around you when you finally do tell them about your problems. For some odd reason though, he did something he never thought he would do, not even thinking about it until after he took Keith’s hand in his own and lifted his arm up to his mouth to kiss his scars. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he tried to pull back for a half second, but stopped when Lance closed his eyes and kept kissing his arm up and down. Lance realized what he was doing halfway through and his face was growing red by the second as he kept on kissing Keith’s arm, but he couldn’t stop. 

He finally explained himself though, keeping his eyes closed as he said in a soft voice, “I have scars too. This was very brave of you to show me, I cannot thank you enough for trusting me with this.”

Keith was quiet, hands shaking ever so slightly as he fumbled with them and awkwardly said, “Where are your scars?”

     “On my hips,” Lance replied, pulling his shirt up to reveal his scars. “I haven’t done anything in a few months, but I just want you to know that you are not alone.”

     “Can I kiss your scars too?” Keith asked, face full of a blush as he looked up at Lance, already bending down towards his hips. 

Lance looked away, giving Keith a silent permission to do what he wanted. Keith nodded his head and leaned forward, pressing his lips up against Lance’s scars and kissing them over and over again until he reached the last one in sight. 

Keith looked up at Lance when he was done and placed his hand on Lance’s cheek, rubbing it with his thumb lightly as he said shyly, “I love you, Lance.”

     “I…” Lance started to say, eyes widening when he realized he now definitely truly meant what he was about to say. “I love you too.”

Keith smiled, staying silent for he hoped Lance would help him know where to go from here. Lance wasn’t exactly sure where to go from there though either, never having loved someone this much before and never having anyone that loved him like this before. He took in a deep breath, trying to figure out what to do before his body acted out before his mind could control it and he leaned forward to kiss Keith. 

He wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist and kissed him, shutting his eyes tightly just in case Keith got angry and pushed him back. That didn’t happen though. To his surprise, Keith kissed back, resting his arms on Lance’s shoulders as they kissed. Keith was more of an experienced kisser, already trying to break through Lance’s lips with his tongue. Lance was shy to the action at first but eventually let Keith do whatever he wanted, just trying to mirror whatever the other boy did. 

When Lance finally got used to them making out, happy with himself for managing not to bite Keith’s tongue or lips or clash their teeth, he started to take off Keith’s shirt, breaking their kiss for just a moment to pull it off all the way. 

Now apart, Keith and him made brief eye contact for a moment, Keith grinning almost evilly though it was also seductive before he sat up a bit and crashed his lips into Lance’s again, brushing his hands across Lance’s groin and starting to unbutton and take off his pants. Even though he was now blind by the kiss, Lance fumbled around for Keith’s pants to take them off as well. 

It took a few tries to successfully get undressed, both boys falling off the bed at least once, but they did it, now stripped down to their underwear and staring at each other with wide eyes as if this was their first time ever. Well, it was Lance’s first time ever seeing anyone else without clothes on in this way, and it was Keith’s first time ever being excited about it. 

Keith grinned and kissed Lance again, wrapping his arms around his waist as he whispered out through his smile, “I think I finally found my home.”

     “Here in this motel?” Lance laughed a little, hoping that Keith would either say no to that question or say somewhere else. 

Keith shook his head and laid back on the pillows behind him, bringing Lance down with him on top of him. He sighed, “No, with you. You are my home. I’ll be ok as long as your beside me.”

Before Lance could say anything, Keith reached up and brought him into a kiss again, raising his lower region up a bit to grind into him as innocently as possible. Lance felt a shiver run down his spine as their groins made contact with each other. He had no idea what he was doing at this point, but his body knew exactly what to do. He pressed himself harder up against Keith, doing everything possible to keep a friction between them. 

     “I love you,” he laughed a little when Keith moaned out over his words. He repeated himself, “I love you so much!”

Keith reached one of his hands into Lance’s briefs, earning a groan from the other boy as he stared into his eyes to reply to him, “I love you too, Lance.”

Lance leaned down to place a kiss on Keith’s forehead, mirroring Keith’s actions with his hands and following his lead as they both jerked each other off since that was all they could do for now. By the time they were both finished, both of them naked at this point because of Lance reminding Keith of the fact that they didn’t have an extra pair of clothes to change into if they got anything on what they were wearing at the moment. 

Both were breathless now, under the sheets and holding onto each other with their legs tangled together. Keith pressed his forehead against Lance’s bare chest and muttered out, “That wasn’t even sex, but it felt better than anything I’ve ever done with anyone else before.”

Lance’s face turned red, the hot moment now being over which welcomed embarrassment to fill his whole head. He held Keith closer and tried to keep up the serious demeanor, “I just hope we didn’t wake up the people next door. I was way too loud.”

The plan to keep anything serious failed miserably when Keith burst out laughing, finding Lance's hand to hold under the covers as he exclaimed, “You were! And I thought I was loud in bed.”

     “It was my first time doing something like that! Can you blame me?” Lance argued defensively, still laughing along with Keith though. 

Keith let out a sigh to end his laughing fit, smiling as he said, “Now I know that the next time we do this, it should be in a secluded area.”

     “Where will we find one all the way out here?” Lance asked, wondering how he could possibly turn the topic of this conversation into one about going back home without ruining this so far amazing night. Maybe he would have to tell his parents that he was having a two night sleepover with Hunk. He would definitely have to get Hunk in on his plan if he wanted to pull that off though. 

Keith shrugged, “Cars are uncomfortable, rooftops are not as secluded as you think, and back alleys are just as scary to do anything in as you’d imagine them to be. I’d have to see the place to before I am able to choose it.”

     “So what you are telling me is we have to be ready at all times?” Lance asked, blushing and wondering why he even asked that. 

Keith didn’t seem too uncomfortable from the question though. In fact his whole face went red even as he smiled and nodded his head, “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

The two of them laughed a little, both internally wondering when this ‘next time’ they were thinking about was going to be. Before long though, they fell asleep, still holding each other despite the heat of New Mexico choking the air around them. No matter how comfortable it could try to make them, they were never going to let go of each other. At this moment, they were all they felt like they had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter! 
> 
> no 10/10 sexy times yet because Lance is a virgin and he's going to get warmed up to the whole idea of being intimate. If they dove right in, that would be a hilariously awkward scene but would last 12 pages.


	9. The Fighting Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Eight_ **

Shiro went to work an hour early today, having checked on Keith this morning when he never got a text from him about Lance picking him up. He thought that he would find Keith asleep in his bed or at the worst moping around about the new baby, but he only found a ransacked room with no Keith to be found. Twenty-seven missed phone calls later and Shiro was now more worried than he had ever been before. 

He hurried into the station house and found his way to Mr. McClain’s office, knocking on the door a few times before he finally took a deep breath and waited patiently for an answer. An answer came in Mr. McClain’s voice on the other side of the door, granting Shiro access to his office, “You may come in.”

Shiro calmly walked inside though everything inside of him was jumping with anxiety. He hadn't  even told Allura what was wrong yet, because he didn’t want to risk stressing her out. He had no idea what stress could even do to a baby or a pregnant woman, and he didn’t want to find out in a hard way. 

     “Good morning, sir,” Shiro managed to say, knowing that barging into his boss’ office with questions and concerns about where his foster kid was was not a good way to start off the morning for either of them. This was embarrassing, because he knew he already looked irresponsible for losing Keith once, but this was definitely going to get child services called on him. 

     “Good morning,” Mr. McClain smiled, “How is Keith doing?”

Shiro gulped, shutting his eyes as the mention of Keith caused his whole calm demeanor to break down. He slumped over and said, “He...He is missing. And not in a way like he ran away again. Do you know if your son might have picked him up last night?”

     “Lance?” Mr. McClain asked, raising an eyebrow. He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head slowly and answering him, “No, Lance went over to Hunk’s place. Have you tried there?”

Shiro sucked in his breath, “Sir, I’m not sure if you know this or not, but Keith and Lance aren’t exactly on the best of terms at the moment. I don’t think he would be sleeping over with them, especially without telling me.”

     “So he just ran away again?” Mr. McClain sighed, laughing a little as he let out his breath, “He’ll be back. He must have just gotten lost again.”

     “You see, that’s the thing,” Shiro argued, “His room was completely destroyed, stuff thrown everywhere as if there was a struggle. Keith is smart enough to leave without a trace of him actually leaving in sight, but this was completely unlike him to leave a mess.”

     “So are you saying he was kidnapped?”

Shiro lowered his head with a determined stare in Mr. McClain’s direction, “I’m saying he didn’t run away. He said he wanted to go back to Texas, but I know he obviously didn’t pack up and start walking there.”

Mr. McClain stood up from his chair behind his desk, walking around to sit at the edge of it in front of Shiro, “I’ll check with Lance to see if he has heard anything. In the meantime, you can take the fact that you’re on time, use it to your advantage, and go out on the highway to watch for speeders.”

Shiro bit his lip, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to focus with the worry of Keith being anywhere in the world at the moment in his mind. He couldn’t just abandon his job to try to find Keith though. He had to stay calm until he knew something was wrong, and then all Hell would break loose for whoever was the reason for Keith disappearing. 

~(___)~

Keith woke up first, asleep on top of Lance and hugging him with his arms and legs wrapped around his body. Keith was embarrassed at first, but grew to the idea of being so close to Lance when he remembered that Lance loved him. He loved him enough to even run away with him. 

He kissed Lance on the lips and muttered out, “Get up, sleepy head. We gotta check out by eleven.”

Lance put his hand over Keith’s mouth lightly and groaned out, his eyes still closed, “Let’s stay here until they knock on our door and kick us out. I’m comfy.”

Keith laughed, “Me too…”

     “Then don’t make us move,” Lance grinned, wrapping his arms around Keith to trap him in that position, in that moment. 

Keith didn’t resist against him. 

They stayed there like that for another hour, falling in and out of sleep though neither of them let go of the other one. Keith found a spot to rest his head on Lance’s neck and Lance was surprisingly comfortable just holding Keith on top of him. It wasn’t long though before both of them needed to pee and were also too hungry to be in bed any longer. 

Keith slowly got up, searching for his clothes as he climbed out of bed. He tossed his shirt at Lance and said, “Hey we are switching shirts today.”

     “And why is that?” Lance asked, looking down at Keith’s shirt that was some kind of band t-shirt of a band he never heard of. He could barely even make out the name that was in some kind of Bleeding Cowboy font. He put the shirt in his lap, because he refused to wear a shirt that read the words ‘Misunderstood Poison’ on it. Were the songs of a band with that name really good enough for Keith to buy a shirt for it?

Lance looked up again when he caught a glimpse of Keith putting on his plain white shirt and jacket on over his otherwise bare skin, saying with an innocent smile, “I want to smell you on what I’m wearing.”

Lance’s face turned bright red and he looked down at the band shirt again, having a whole new feeling about it then before. He quickly put it on and got up, trying to subtly smell the shirt for Keith’s scent. He smelled a mix of smoke and cologne, reminding him of Keith but being nothing like the real thing. He would just have to keep Keith around in order to smell the scent he loved so much. 

Keith put on his own pants and said to Lance, “We can go to a Waffle House or something cheap and nearby. Then we can drive until we at least get to Texas today, ok?”

Lance fell silent, not wanting to drive any farther away from their town, but also not wanting to talk to Keith about going back yet. He sighed and grabbed his pants off the ground, “You want to take a detour first though? There is a lot of...nature in these parts. We need to see at least one national park before we leave this state forever.”

Keith thought about it for a moment then shrugged and agreed, “Yeah, ok. We should go to a lake. I’ve never been to one before.”

     “You’ve never been to a lake before?” Lance practically shouted out. He shook his head, “I’m not having that. We are visiting a lake today. And that lake will be Quemado Lake because that is actually nearby and we won’t run into anyone out there.”

Keith grinned, “Can we swim in the lake?”

     “What’s the point of a lake if you can’t swim in it?” Lance laughed a little, pulling up his own pants and slipping on his shoes. When they were both ready and packed, he held Keith’s hand and said, “Let’s go eat some chocolate waffles and hash browns.”

They went to breakfast at a next door Waffle House, both holding each other’s hand as they ate their food. They had bed head and looked like they were ready to fall asleep again, but both were actually really excited to go to the lake. Lance was going to talk to Keith when they got there about how they should go back home and at least talk to their families about what was going on. He was sure Keith would listen to him then. 

When they were done, they started to drive in the direction of the lake until Keith asked for Lance to pull off onto an exit and stop by a drug store. They parked and Lance started to get out of the car to accompany Keith on his run to get something in the store until Keith instructed him to stay in the car because he was getting something secret.  Confused but still wanting to keep Keith in a good mood while he could, Lance complied to stay in the car while Keith went in to get something. While he was in the car alone though, his phone started to ring. It was his dad. 

Lance totally forgot about even calling his dad to let him know he was staying over an extra day. He quickly picked up the phone and answered it, “Hola papa. ¿Cómo estás?”

His dad spoke in English back, meaning that he was in at work while calling him, “Lance where are you right now?”

     “At Hunk’s house like I told you last night. Why?”

His dad sighed, “It seems your friend Keith went missing again. Is he over there with you?”

Lance looked around, mumbling out a barely audible ‘uhhh’ as he tried to think about what he could say. Since hesitating on his answer would make the situation even more suspicious than it already was, he came up with a quick lie, “I haven’t talked to him since yesterday actually.”

He heard his dad let out a sigh of relief on the other end, “Ok then. Well if you heard from him, please tell me. Shiro is worried he got kidnapped or something like that.”

     “Really?” Lance’s eyes widened, his hands tightening around his fun from the feeling of guilt that was taking over his body. 

     “Yeah, but don’t worry about it,” his dad replied, “Keith is a foster kid and most likely ran away so I’m not going to create a fuss over it. I heard you two aren’t on good terms, but just watch for him, will you?”

Lance nodded his head, “I will.” 

He looked up and saw Keith returning back to the table and quickly said, “Gotta go. Hunk and I are going to take his dog for a walk. Bye.”

     “Love you.”

     “Love you too.”

Keith hopped into the car with Lance and asked, “Who was that?”

Lance put his phone back in his pocket, “Wrong number, I guess. It was some kid pulling a prank.”

~(___)~

Shiro walked into the station, walking up to Mr. McClain in the breakroom and immediately saying to him without a greeting, “I still haven’t heard anything from Keith. This isn’t like him! Have you talked to your son yet?”

Mr. McClain took a slow sip of his coffee, seeming uncaring as he answered, “I talked to Lance and Lance hasn’t seen him either. I still wouldn’t worry until maybe tomorrow though, because he is a broken kid, Shiro. He probably just ran away, but he is going to realize it is hard to live on his own or someone is going to spot him and turn him in, and things will be fine.”

     “But what if this was Lance who went missing! You would be a lot more worried than you are right now,” Shiro argued. 

     “Lance wouldn’t do this kind of thing, so of course,” Mr. McClain said. “Just don’t worry and give him space for now.”

Shiro clenched his fists, trying hard to control his anger even as he shouted out frustratedly, “Just because Keith is a foster kid doesn’t mean he is broken and will run away like this! You need to worry about him just as much as any other kid. People with mindsets like yours are what cause kids in his situation to lose complete hope in themselves!”

Mr. McClain’s eyes widened and he set his mug down. He sighed and calmly said, “Shiro, I understand you are worried but don’t yell in the workplace. I have no reason to report anything yet, but I’ll let you take today to patrol around and look for him for now. If you find him, then you can have a talk with him about running away and if you don’t, then you can talk to me.”

     "Can you at least tell the other patrolling officers to look for him as well?” Shiro asked, calming down a bit now that he was allowed to search for Keith. 

Mr. McClain nodded his head, “Of course. Good luck with your search.”

~(____)~

     “How much further is this lake? I thought it would be near the parking lot, so I didn’t bother to bring what I got from the store,” Keith whined out, following a few feet behind Lance as they walked through the woods.

Lance looked down at his map and then back up at the sight in front of him, smiling and saying, “Keith lookup and you’ll see it.”

Keith groaned out, but finally looked up from the ground to see the shore of the lake right in front of them. No one was around and it looked so still and peaceful. Keith’s eyes widened and he muttered out, “It is so beautiful.”

     “Isn’t it?” Lance grinned, turning to look at Keith. “You know how to swim, don’t you?”

Keith laughed a little, walking past Lance, “I can’t swim for crap, but that’s not gonna stop me.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he quickly followed Keith, “And now I’m going to keep a very close eye on you.”

Keith threw his clothes off as he ran, Lance’s shirt and jacket that he was wearing and his pants falling to the ground before he ran into the water and took in the cool temperature that came along with it. Lance took a bit longer taking off his shoes, but he joined Keith in the water shortly after. 

Keith splashed Lance and laughed, “A lake is so much better than a pool!”

     “It is so beautiful out here,” Lance looked around at the nature surrounding the lake. 

     “You’re beautiful,” Keith added, taking Lance by surprised. 

Lance’s eyes widened and he looked to Keith with a puzzled look before remembering that they both knew that they loved each other. It wasn’t weird to say something like that. His whole face grew red and he felt like his heart was melting or growing bigger in his stomach. He felt his hand over his chest and smiled, “Keith, you may already know this, but I love you. Like a lot.”

Keith laughed and nodded his head, “I love you too.” 

He jumped up a bit in the water and latched his arms around Lance’s neck to kiss him. Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, kissing him back. They broke for a moment so Lance could say, “I kind of want to do what we did last night, but I’m not sure how sanitary that is in lake waters.”

     “Then let’s do it on shore,” Keith replied, holding Lance’s hand. “And guess what I have in the car?”

Lance blushed and pressed his palm to his face to hide his embarrassed blush and expression, “I had a feeling that you went into the store to get that kind of stuff…”

     “Will it be your first time using a condom, Lancey?” Keith jabbed at him, smiling flirtatiously. 

Lance’s eyes widened and he shook his head violently, “No! I…” he took a deep breath and let it all out, “Fine, yeah, you are my first, congratulations.”

Keith pumped his fist into the air, “I knew it!” He hugged Lance from the side, “Don’t worry, you may not be my first, but you are my favorite.”

     “Do you say that to all guys?” Lance joked. 

Keith kissed Lance’s neck innocently and smiled, “I didn’t have a choice for anyone except you, so nope!”

Lance stopped where he was, gripping the skin on Keith’s hip softly between his fingers to make him stop as well. Keith turned to Lance, confused, “What is it?”

     “Did you really not want to be with any of the guys you had sex with?” Lance asked, his gaze off to the side as he thought about all those times Keith was probably forced into it because he wasn’t strong enough or didn’t have anyone to protect him. 

He was taken away from his thoughts when Keith grabbed his face and forced him to stare into his eyes as he said, “Don’t pity me. I really don’t care anymore.”

     “I’m sorry but-!” Lance started to say, but Keith cut him off by kissing him. 

Keith reached his hands into Lance’s briefs and whispered seductively, “Do me a favor and go to the car to get everything we need. It is all in the grocery bag in my seat.”

Lance moaned out and buried his nose and mouth in Keith’s wet hair, “You are so cruel to make me go all the way to the car and back with a boner.”

     “Already?” Keith teased, kissing Lance’s neck. “The faster you go, the sooner I can take care of that for you.”

Lance grinned and kissed Keith before parting with him with a sly look on his face, “Finally being the fastest runner on my soccer team is paying off. Time me!”

     “I will!” Ketih called out, watching as Lance ran off into the woods in the direction of the truck. 

He smiled and sat down on the shore of the lake near their clothes, watching the lake as he counted up the seconds in his head. He brushed the hair back behind his ear and tried to take out as much water as possible so that wouldn’t be a problem for later. Keith was turning redder and redder as he thought about what he and Lance were going to do. This was the first time he was excited about something like this. 

~(____)~

Shiro looked down at his phone, having thought of a solution to easily find Keith if luck was in his favor. He gave Keith a crappy phone, but it was still a phone that could be tracked. If Keith didn’t smash it already or leave it behind somewhere, he would be able to find him and possibly his kidnappers if there were any. He had to trust that Keith wouldn’t have just run away. He had to give Keith the chance that he was in trouble and that was why he was gone. He would be the only person that believed in Keith, but he knew that was enough. Having Keith believe in him when they were younger was the thing that made him become someone. Keith needed that same chance.

He was running the cerial number from Keith’s phone through the computer, tapping his leg quickly against the table out of anxiety as he waited to find out where Keith was. What if the phone came up in a location near a river? What if it came up in a dumpster or in a warehouse and he was going to find his dead body there?

Shiro’s heart jumped in his chest when he thought of that. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to Keith. Keith was his family when he didn’t have one and he still was his family. He couldn’t lose that. 

Shiro looked up when the computer beeped and a location appeared on the screen. His eyes widened and he muttered to himself, “Quemado Lake? What are you doing there?” 

Mr. Mc Clain walked into the room as soon as Shiro closed out of the computer and stared up at him. Mr. Mc Clain sighed and said, “You could have asked me first. I wouldn’t have minded if you tracked his phone.”

     “Sir, I-!”

He was interrupted when Mr. Mc Clain raised his hand and said in a calm voice, “Where is he?”

Shiro looked down, “Quemado Lake…”

     “Then you can go get him,” Mr. McClaine looked down. “I called Hunk and he said Lance and him hadn’t even talked since yesterday. I then tracked Lance’s phone to see where he was and it looks like they are in the same place.”

     “They’re together?” Shiro asked, feeling sad that Keith ran off with him without telling him and worried him to death. 

Mr. McClaine moved out of the way so Shiro could walk by, “Make Lance come back as well. He’s now officially grounded until he’s out of my house.”

     “Same for Keith,” Shiro muttered out, as he left to go retrieve the two of them. 

~(____)~

Lance’s phone rang. That was what made Keith pay attention to it in Lance’s pants on the ground. Lance had been gone for only a minute now, so Keith had time to see who it was and put it back. He looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was Lance’s dad. 

A wave of guilt flooded through his system as he remembered how kind his dad was to Lance and how he was probably tearing them apart. He loved Lance too much to let him leave him all alone to go back to his family though. He wanted to be with Lance for forever. When the call ended and it went to voicemail, Keith was able to see the text messages Mr. McClaine sent Lance. 

     ‘When are you going to bring Keith back?”

Keith’s eyes widened. Lance was going to take him back home? He swiped up to see more text messages.

     ‘Shiro is on his way to you guys so stay there. He is tracking Keith’s phone.’

Keith looked up at the woods to see Lance heading back from the car. Freaked out about Shiro being on his way to get them, he quickly grabbed his phone from the pocket of Lance’s jacket and threw it into the water so Shiro wouldn’t be able to track them anywhere but there now. 

Keith was just about to throw Lance’s phone into the lake just out of sheer anger, but was stopped when Lance quickly grabbed his hand and shouted, “Woah man, what are you thinking?”

He looked to Lance with a glare and shouted out, “You told your dad about us being here. You are planning to bring us back to the town!”

    “No, I didn’t tell him,” Lance quickly explained, eyes widening. “Why would you think that? What were you doing going through my phone?”

Keith threw Lance phone down on a rock, watching as the screen shattered as it scrunched up against the rock. His face was red as he shouted, “You probably just brought me out here to fuck didn’t you! You claimed you loved me so much you would run away with me and then you were going to drop me off at my house to be shipped back off to Texas and leave you a non-virgin ready for something better!”

Lance looked down at his phone, trying his best not to punch Keith for completely destroying his precious phone as he yelled out, “Keith listen to me and stop acting like a damn psycho! I wanted to bring you out here and talk to you about coming back and maybe trying to talk to Shiro about things! And if that didn’t work out, I would have made my family foster you, ok?”

     “You are a liar and I wish we never met!” Keith growled at him, ending in a shout as he stepped closer to Lance. He threw his hands out in frustration and shouted, “If you want to go home so badly then go home! But I’m going back to Texas whether you or Shiro or anyone like it or not!”

Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist as Keith tried to leave, but Keith slapped his arm away from him, biting his lip, “Burn in Hell.”

     “Keith think about what you are doing!” Lance shouted after Keith, grabbing all their clothes and the remains of his phone before he chased after him. He followed him up the track of the woods and kept talking, “Shiro is so worried about you, he tried to get a whole search party out for you this morning!”

     “I don’t give a fuck about Shiro anymore,” Keith growled out, reaching the parking lot. “He has his own family now and I am my own family. I should have never let anyone close to me in the first place.”

Lance couldn’t take what Keith was saying anymore, so he grabbed Keith wrists and held on for dear life, “I’m going back home. I’m not running away with you anymore. Either go back home with me or throw away everything that could have been good for you.”

Keith smiled, tears falling out of his eyes, “Were you supposed to be one of those things?” He laughed, though it was a forced one to show confidence he could barely muster up at the moment. “Take me to the state line of Texas and then we can part ways there or just give me my stuff and I’ll hitchhike.”

     “I’ll take you there,” Lance sighed, not wanting to let Keith hitchhike just yet. Maybe he could stop for gas, lock Keith in the car, and have Shiro come and get them from there. Keith would never want to talk to him again, but at least he would be alive and hopefully someday happy. 

Keith crossed his arms and moved for the car door, “Fine. But I’m not talking to you the whole way there.”

~(___)~

Shiro was driving. 

He was thirty minutes away from the lake, but he felt like every second he was on the road he was getting farther and farther away from Keith. What if they had already left? What would he do then? What if he got there and Keith didn’t want to come home? What was going to happen when he had to force Keith into the back of his cop car in order to get him back home again? He never wanted to be a forceful figure to Keith, but he had no choice but to do this now. 

He trusted Keith. He felt so hurt by the fact that Keith ran away from him even after their talk yesterday. Would he be able to go on like this? He wanted to adopt Keith, but if Keith didn’t want to be adopted and go back to Texas, could he really control what happened?

The sky was growing dark. 

~(____)~

     “Keith please talk to me,” Lance sighed out. 

Keith looked out the window at the sky that was growing darker and darker by the minute, “I don’t want to talk to you. All you are is someone I need for the next hour or so to get me to the state line.”

Lance bit his lip and kept driving on until a few minutes later when he tried to speak to Keith again, “Don’t you think you’ll miss Shiro? And do you really want to go back to the place where people raped you-!”

He was interrupted by Keith slamming his hand on the space of the seat between them, “Ok, you know what? Get all that rape stuff out of your head. Get everything I ever told you out of your head! When you drop me off, you should just get me out of your head fully too, because we are never going to see each other ever again after today.”

      “Keith stop acting like such a….” Lance shouted out, but his words trailed off when he couldn’t find a word to compare Keith to without ruining his chances of making amends with Keith anytime soon. 

Keith snapped though, turned to Lance and yelling out, “What? Huh? Dumbass… Idiot… Asshole… Shithead? Pick one to call me, it’s your choice!”

     “Fine, your a fucking asshole, Keith! You treat everyone like shit and then when you get the same treatment you give them you get all pissed off and run away! You are such a hypocrite!” Lance turned to Keith as he shouted out the last few words, eyebrows furrowing over his glare to show his anger. 

Keith rolled his eyes, “Really? Asshole and hypocrite are all you are going to call me?”

     “Gay,” Lance stated, lips tightening into a line as he still kept his eyes on Keith. 

Keith laughed out loud, “Gay? Are you serious?” He looked out the window, “I’ve heard worse from toddlers at the foster care center.”

Lance laughed, “Are you serious?”

Keith turned to Lance with a grin on his face, laughing as he started to say something else, but his eyes suddenly widened and he screamed out, “Lance watch out!” right before impact crashed into their truck. 

~(___)~

Keith wasn’t at the lake. It said his phone was at the lake, but Lance’s car wasn’t even in the parking lot anymore. It was obvious that they somehow found out and stashed their phones somewhere around here. He wasn’t surprised that Mr. Mcclaine told Lance that he was on his way to get them, but that really was a stupid move for a chief police officer to make. 

Shiro sighed and laid back in the seat of his car. Today had been a long day, too long of a day… He just wanted to be at home enjoying the day with Allura and Keith but instead he was keeping Keith’s disappearance from Allura and was trying to fix everything that went wrong starting from last night. 

He couldn’t go back home without Keith though. He was just going to have to keep trudging on longer until he found him and brought him back. The next step was to call Mr. McClaine for new coordinates if Lance still had his phone. 

~(___)~

     “...Keith,” Lance muttered out as consciousness came back to him. 

He was upside down. He could feel it because he felt light headed from all the blood in his head. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was still in the car, crashed in a ditch in the dark. His last memories were of them accidentally swerving off the road, but everything after that was black in his mind. 

When no answer came to his calls, he turned to Keith to see him on the roof of the car, having fallen from his seat. Was he even wearing his seatbelt in the first place? Lance’s eyes widened when he saw blood coming from Keith’s head and arm. There was… so much blood. 

     “Keith!” Lance cried out, reaching for Keith to wake him up, but he couldn’t reach him. 

Without thinking, he quickly unbuckled himself and fell from his seat, landing on his shoulder but being unharmed enough to sit up and move Keith so he could wake him up or at least see his face. 

He tried to see through his tears as he pulled Keith’s limp body into his arms and shouted for him to wake up. He hit his face, “Keith come on! Stop playing!”

There was no reaction. 

Lance felt Keith’s neck for a pulse but couldn’t feel anything due to his shaking hands. His quickly looked around him, reaching his hands over to the door handle to open the door. Thankfully, he was able to open the door without any problems, falling out of the car and pulling Keith out with him. His phone was destroyed, it was the dead of the night, they were in a ditch alongside a road with barely any cars passing them every few hours, and the nearest hospital he had noticed was only a few miles back. He could probably carry him there if he needed. 

Lance stood up, scraped up legs shaking under him as he picked Keith up in bridal style. Tears were falling down his face and blood was coming from his nose. He could barely see straight and his head felt like his brain was banging against his skull. 

He still managed to keep Keith in his arms though, starting the treck to the hospital that was going to feel like Hell every step. He was prepared to deal with it though if it meant saving Keith if he wasn’t already too far gone from being saved. He wasn't ever going to forgive himself if Keith didn't make it. 

~(___)~

Shiro decided to stay in a motel near the lake for tonight, not wanting to be driving while tired and stressed at the same time. He couldn't stand the thought of something happening to him with Allura being pregnant. 

He was awoken by the sound of his ringtone on his bedside table. It was enough to startle him awake, his blood and heart already pumping as he answered the phone. 

     “Hello?” he asked, worried since he had seen it was Mr. McClaine calling. 

     “Shiro… I am on my way to near where you are now. Something… Something bad has happened to Lance and Keith.”

Shiro sat up straight, “Oh God, what happened?”

     “There was a car accident,” Mr. McClain answered on the other end, distress evident in his voice. He paused for a moment saying, “I know Lance is fine and alive, but Keith…”

     “What is wrong?” Shiro bit his lip that was starting to tremble. He knew what was about to come, but he didn’t have the strength to brace himself for it. 

Mr. McClaine finally breathed out the sentence Shiro feared was coming, “Shiro, I'm only hearing updates from Lance right now, but Keith is in critical condition and... the doctors aren’t sure if he’s going to make it. I’m so sorry…I’m… so sorry….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> To the people that made it to the end of the chapter here is a round of applause.   
> Sorry it was so long and so late, but I am working on publishing my own book right now and then when I did decide to work on this, I got a little carried away.


	10. The New Old Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Ten_ **

Lance stood up when he caught sight of Shiro entering the hospital. He was afraid to confront him, but the man had already seen him before he could hide. Tears were in Lance’s eyes blurring his vision though that didn’t stop him from slowly walking up to Shiro and saying with a stutter, “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry! I don’t know what happened, I just woke up and-!”

Shiro glared at him and stepped back so Lance would know he wasn’t allowed to come any closer. He kept his hands firm to his sides and asked Lance in a monotone voice, “Was he breathing when you brought him here?”

     “I don’t know…” Lance shook his head, looking down, “I checked his pulse but I couldn’t feel anything because my hands were shaking too much, and-!”

Shiro was already walking away to the front desk. He placed his hand on the table to grab the attention of the nurse behind the desk as he said, “Keith Kogane is in your hospital right now. He just got into a car accident. Is there any news yet about him?”

     “Are you a family member?” the nurse asked. 

Shiro clenched his teeth and nodded his head, “Legal guardian. Is that good enough? Because I am all he has.”

The nurse looked down at the computer, pulling up Keith’s name before saying, “He is undergoing surgery right now. You can’t see him.”

Shiro rolled his eyes, hating how irritated he was with everyone but unable to stop himself, “I get that. I just want to know if he is alive and if he is going to live. Then I’ll get to the part where I’ll ask when I can see him.”

     “He is alive,” the nurse answered. 

     “And will he stay alive?” Shiro asked, leaning closer as anxiety took a place in his body and his stomach flipped and turned to the point where he wasn’t sure if he could keep in diner dinner in front of this woman. 

The nurse looked down at the computer before muttering out, “A doctor will come and talk to you when they know more. For now just sit tight.”

     “My name is Takashi Shirogane,” he answered, pointing over to the first row of seats in the waiting room. “I’ll be sitting right over there waiting.”

Shiro walked over the chair he pointed at and sat down in it, staring at the wall on the other side of the room as he sat and thought about what he was going to do if they weren’t able to save Keith. How would he live with himself if Keith died? He wouldn’t be able to… Keith was his whole life for the longest time, there was no way he would be able to live with the fact that it was partially his fault for his only family at one point in his life to be gone. 

Lance sat down next to him, sniffling and wiping his tears away as he muttered out, “Did you find out if he was ok yet?”

Shiro tried his best not to punch the kid or yell out at him in the quiet waiting room at four a.m. at night. He also couldn’t do anything to him because his dad was his boss. Instead of hurting the teen for not only getting into a fight with Keith a day before but also wrecking the car and possibly killing Keith, Shiro just clenched his fists and took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he let his anger out as slowly and nicely as possible, “I’m not in my best mind right now, so I wouldn’t be the person to talk to if you are wanting comfort from anyone. Your dad is on his way, so I’d wait by the door for him.”

     “But I’m going to stay here,” Lance argued. “I needed to find out if Keith is fine!”

Shiro got up, “He better be or else….” His words trailed off when he saw a doctor walk out of two doors near the front desk of the waiting area. 

His eyes widened and he walked over to her and away from Lance, “Do you know anything about a kid named Keith Kogane?”

     “Are you Takashi Shirogane?” she asked, tilting her head with a confused smile. 

He nodded his head quickly, “I am. Is he alive? Don’t tell me if he isn’t.”

The woman shook her head, “He is… still alive.”

     “But not fine,” Shiro finished her phrase that he was expecting her to say. Fearing for her to say. 

She nodded her head in response, biting her lip, “Please sit down so we can talk.”

She led the way to a pair of seats in the corner of the room that were secluded away from the rest of the few people in the waiting room. Shiro could see Lance staring at them with longing eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t care. He just considered this secrecy away from him as the start of a long road of karma for doing this to Keith. 

The woman rested her hands in her lap as she said in a strong but still quiet voice, “We are still in the process of performing an emergency surgery on him. It may take a few more hours, but things are looking better than they were when he was brought here to us.”

     “Oh God…” Shiro wiped his eyes, feeling small tears escaping them and rubbing off onto his hand. He shook his head and cried out. He had heard this all before when his own family died. The doctors gave him that false hope before they were officially dead and he was left all alone as a ten year old. “That basically means that he’s still barely alive, right?”

The doctor shook her head and placed a hand on his knee for support as she said, “His injuries are a lot better than they could have been. He just has a few messy fractures and his spleen and liver were cut deeply by what we are guessing was his seatbelt. He may have brain damage as well, but one of our doctors on the team have confirmed that it won’t be anything too bad.”

     “And what bones did he break?” 

     “Four of his ribs, his left collarbone, his hip, and his right arm,” the doctor said with a smile, “Patients have survived much worse.”

Shiro clenched his hands up into fists above his knees, sniffling as he cried out, “But this is… Keith is just a kid. He’s not going to be able to survive that!”

    “You have to stay hopeful,” the nurse assured him, her tone of voice not sounding trustworthy at all though when she spoke of Keith. 

Shiro shook his head and stood up again only to sit right back down when his legs couldn’t hold him up. He buried his face into his hands and muttered out, “I just need to be alone right now.... I’ll be here though if there are any updates. Please let me know when I am able to see him.”

     “We will,” the nurse replied standing up. “I am so sorry for what you are going through. 

When the nurse left, Lance, who was watching the situation, immediately walked over to Shiro and sat down beside him, “What is going on? Is Keith ok?”

     “No, he’s not ok,” Shiro grumbled out, not wanting a teenager to see tears falling from his eyes. He looked up and avoided showing his face to him, “He’s in critical condition but he will be fine soon.”

He wanted to tell Lance that he wasn’t allowed to worry about him, that this was his fault, that he should be going through this instead of Keith, but he also knew how much those words would destroy the kid. No matter what he did to Keith, he didn’t deserve to have words spoken to him like that. Shiro also knew that thinking like that was only his grief and he would get over his anger towards the kid soon. It was better to say nothing at all than something he would regret later. 

Lance slumped over, looking down at his hands, “Keith told me Allura is pregnant. Congratulations.”

     “Is that why he left?” Shiro choked out, wiping his eyes with his hands to free them of tears. 

Lance sucked in a sharp breath, “I only brought him out here to talk to him about coming back. I swear I had no intention of taking him away from you guys. He asked me to runaway with him, and it was either bring him out here to talk to him or let him run off on his own and never be seen again.”

     “Or you could have told me or another responsible adult,” Shiro added, not really caring about Lance's excuses. 

     “But he would have hated me,” Lance argued. “He would have hated all of us.”

     “But he would be alive right now!” Shiro snapped, eyes widening when he realized what he said though. He quickly retracted and looked the other way, “He would at least be safe right now.”

Lance bit his lip, “The nurse told you he was at least alive right?”

Shiro nodded his head but then shook it slowly, “She told me he was alive for now. I’m trying to stay hopeful, but I’ve been told that too many times, and it always ended in failure.”

Shiro heard a whine escaped from Lance’s mouth before Lance sniffled, probably crying now. He could guess that Lance was blaming himself for this. He felt guilty for making the kid feel that way, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything else without breaking into a sob as well. He resided in silence until Lance got up, muttering out a quick, “My dad is here,” before walking to the door where Mr. McClaine was. 

As Lance walked over to his dad with his feet dragging along the floor, Shiro felt something inside him want to jump up and act like he was fine to impress his boss, but he couldn’t do it. He wanted to be strong, but this was Keith. He didn’t care what people thought of him to an extent at this point. 

The McClaine father and son duo stayed at the front of the lobby for a while, Shiro hearing little glimpses of their conversation where Mr. McClaine was assuring Lance that it wasn’t his fault. Lance was crying and it didn’t seem like Mr. McClaine was going to leave him any time soon. Shiro was fine being by himself at this time. 

An hour later, Mr. McClaine finally made his way over to Shiro, leaving a now sleeping Lance in a chair on the other side of the room. He sat down next to Shiro, letting out a grunt as he sat down, acting like the old man he refused to admit he was. He turned to Shiro and spoke in a tone Shiro recognized from when he heard the man talk to victims of crimes, “Lance told me that Keith is alive still, so that is good.”

     “He doesn’t know the injuries,” Shiro muttered out, looking up at Mr. McClaine with red puffy eyes. “The nurse couldn’t even tell me if he was going to be able to live through the night.”

Mr. McClaine looked down, “How long have you known Keith?”

     “Since I was eleven,” Shiro answered, “Right after my parents died and I was placed in foster care. My grandparents couldn’t take care of me full time so I was placed in that system. He was only four years old and he’s been like a brother to me ever since.”

     “He’s going to make it,” Mr. McClaine assured him, placing his hand on Shiro’s shoulder wearily, afraid that it was going to be shoved off or Shiro was going to move away from his touch. He was welcomed though, Shiro not having any choice but to accept any form of condolences he could receive from anyone else in this time. 

Two more hours passed and Shiro was dozing off in and out of sleep no matter how hard he tried to stay awake and worry about Keith. He was jealous of Lance being able to sleep all through the night as if there wasn’t anyone dying because of him, but jealousy could only last long enough until he fell asleep again. 

He was woken up permanently the next time when the same nurse from before ran out and woke him up, saying with a smile, “Keith is stable. You will be able to see him soon, but we just need to ask you a few questions and give you more information on his state.”

Shiro’s eyes widened and he stood up, “Ok. Can I see him while we are talking?”

     “Of course,” the nurse said, already leading him back into the hallway where Keith’s room was. 

As they walked, she turned to him and quickly informed him, “Keith is in a comatose state. We aren’t sure how long he will be unconscious yet, but it should be for only a few days to two weeks at the most.”

     “Two weeks?” Shiro repeated.

     “Worst case scenario,” she added, pausing for a moment to unlock a door with her badge and open the door up to a white and beige colored room with a bed in the center, Keith unconscious in it as if he was only sleeping soundly. 

That illusion only turned into reality when Shiro stepped closer to see his right arm wrapped up in a cast, bandages around his head, and cuts all over his skin that was visible. If Shiro hadn’t been told that Keith was alive, he would have believed that this was his final chance to say goodbye to Keith’s corpse. 

He ran to Keith’s side and examined his body over and over again as much as he could without touching him, finally turning to the nurse when he was done to ask, “He is going to live right? He is definitely alive for good?”

     “We are going to have to perform hip surgery on him and run a few more tests to make sure he is safe to move when he does wake up with his damaged organs, but yes he is definitely going to live. You can thank the boy that carried him all the way from the crash that was three miles away from here. Without him, we wouldn’t have found the crash or would have been able to save Keith,” the nurse smiled, tilting her head as she continued to ask a different topic of questions, “How are you related to the boy? Are you brothers?”

Shiro bit his lip and shook his head, “He is like a brother to me, but no, I-I’m his foster parent and soon-to-be adopted parent so he doesn’t have to go back into that system.”

The nurse nodded her head in response, pulling out a clipboard to write on as she asked Shiro more questions about background information on Keith. It wasn’t until the sun started to come up again when the nurse let Lance and Mr. McClaine walk into the room to see Keith. 

When Lance saw Keith, he let out a quiet but sharp cry, covering his mouth as he cried out to his dad, “Todo esta es mi culpa.. Todo esta es mi culpa!”

Mr. McClaine put a firm a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “Calm down Lance, it isn’t.”

     “When is he going to wake up?” Lance asked, tears in his eyes as he looked up at Shiro. He turned to his dad, “We can stay until Keith wakes up, right? I need to!”

Shiro shook his head, “That might me two weeks from now,” he sighed, shutting his eyes to rest them for just a few seconds, “There was a bit of brain damage so he is in a coma.”

     “No…” Lance whispered out. “I’m so sorry.. It should have been me, not him.”

     “Lance don’t say that!” his dad shouted. 

Shiro stayed quiet, only look up at them for a brief moment before looking back down at Keith’s body. He listened as Mr. McClaine continued to speak in a demanding tone, “You can stay until Sunday night, but then you need to go back to school Monday morning with all of your homework done.”

     “You are my boss too, I guess,” Shiro said, looking up. “How long am I allowed to stay?”

Mr. McClaine sighed out, “How long did the nurse say he was probably going to be in this state?”

     “Two weeks at the most.”

     “Ok, then I’ll give you two weeks of paid leave that will not count as vacation days since it was my son that brought Keith all the way out here. Even if he wakes up tomorrow, you can still use the rest of the time to be with him and help him with all his injuries.”

Shiro smiled and looked down, “Thank you so much… I will take that offer, but I do want to thank Lance for carrying Keith here,” he looked to Lance, “The nurse’s told me what you did for him. I cannot thank you enough for not just leaving him there in that car.”

Lance nodded his head, guilt still eating him up until that was all he could feel. Shiro was still mad at Lance, but he really did feel thankful for Lance doing something so heroic in order to save Keith. 

The next day was spent with Mr. McClaine running errands for them, getting food, and making calls to his wife with hourly updates on both Lance and Keith. When they were left alone, Shiro and Lance didn’t talk much to each other until Shiro finally asked a question that was on his mind, “So are you dating Keith?”

     “Dating?” Lance stuttered out, sounding as if the idea appalled him, though the blush on his face told Shiro otherwise. He looked down at his folded hands in his lap and shook his head, “I..Is he gay?

     “You know he is gay, because he told you. He told me he did,” Shiro stated, trying to sound as understanding as possible so that Lance wouldn’t be afraid to tell him the truth. 

Lance bit his lip, “Are you against it?”

     “Unless it affects his future, I’m not against anything Keith does,” Shiro replied, looking at Keith’s still bloodied face. He had just gotten out of surgery to fix his broken hip and was still in his coma. 

Lance nodded his head, still looking down at his hands, “We are dating. I don’t know if Keith wants to date me anymore after finding out that I was never really planning to run away with him, but I hope he understands I only meant good by what I did.”

     “I’m sure he won’t care if he wakes up again. He will just be happy he is alive,” Shiro said to assure Lance, though he knew how stubborn Keith was. Keith could experience a near death experience and still wake up to hate whoever did him wrong a few minutes before. That was just how he was, but Shiro wasn’t going to let Lance know that. 

Shiro was brought out of his thoughts when Lance stuttered out, “Can you please not tell my dad about this?” Lance looked down, “He doesn’t know about me liking guys and I kind of hope it stays that way at least until I’m out of the house. I’m just afraid how he will react.”

     “Your secret is safe with me,” Shiro smiled, finally looking to Lance for the first time since he got to the hospital. “Just don’t break his heart and we won’t have a problem.”

Eventually, Lance had to leave on his dad’s orders, since school was going to come bright and early in the morning no matter who was in a coma in the hospital. Shiro made sure to call Allura every few hours, checking on her and the baby even though she kept insisting the baby shouldn’t even be a worry until she started to show. He ignored her anyway and asked for every detail on how the pregnancy was going in the few days he missed. 

He stayed at a nearby motel when the nurses told him he couldn’t stay at the hospital past midnight anymore. He would take a quick shower, change into clothes he bought from a Target that was down the road, and go back to the hospital where Keith still was. 

Lance would also visit as much as he could, coming there for an hour or two in between practice and when his family demanded he’d be home. Shiro was thankful he was there after a few days of being completely alone. He liked having someone to talk to who worried just as much about Keith as he did. 

It was Wednesday when Keith finally showed signs of waking up though, it being in the morning when Lance was gone and Shiro was all alone in the room. Words being barely mumbled turned into fingers twitching turned into words being spoken turned into Keith jolting awake, eyes wide open and whole body in shock. He reached over for his bedside rails and groaned out in pain. 

Shiro’s eyes widened and he quickly pressed a button for the nurses to come, bending over the bed to show Keith that he was there, saying, “Hey, I’m here! It’s ok, you are fine, you just need to stay calm.”

Keith looked over at him, eyes still wide, “Shiro? Where am I? What happened?”

     “You were in a car accident, but you were only asleep for a few days. What is the last thing you remember?”

Keith looked down at his body, his mind frantically searching for memories before he finally answered Shiro, “I don’t remember a car accident… I was just,” he went quiet for a moment before mumbling something out, “...with friends. What are you doing here?”

     “What do you mean what am I doing here?” Shiro asked, before he stopped talking, eyes widening in realization. He sucked in his breath and leaned closer to ask, “What day is it? Where do you live?”

Keith moaned out in pain again, looking away from Shiro. He didn’t seem like he was in the mood to be interrogated right now, but he answered the questions anyway, “It’s.. September twentieth or something like that, I don’t know. And I live in Texas?”

     “What year is it?”

Keith shut his eyes and bit his lip, “Two-thousand Sixteen.”

Shiro’s eyes widened and he sat back in shock. Keith lost a whole year’s worth of memories of his life. The nurses came in and he looked up at them, saying breathlessly, “He lost his memories. He doesn’t remember a whole year’s worth of them.”

The nurse’s escorted Shiro out of the room and into the waiting room in order for them to check out Keith’s mind and body and make a decision on how much his brain was actually damage and if he suffered from nerve loss. It took an hour for Shiro to finally be invited back into the room. This time though, he came back to Keith who was sitting up and resting with a smile on his face when he noticed Shiro entering the room. 

He tilted his head, “So I found out I live in New Mexico now?”

Shiro stared at the nurse with a worried glance before nodding his head and giving his full attention to Keith, “Yeah, you do as of a month ago.”

Keith turned to the nurse, “Am I all good? I felt it when you tapped me everywhere, so I must not have lost anything except for my memories.”

The nurse nodded her head, “Yes, you are all cleared. You should be able to go home in a few days too, so I’ll send a doctor in to talk to you both about more information on that.”

Shiro smiled and nodded at the nurse as she left, quickly sitting by Keith’s bedside when he said, “I’m so happy you are awake. You have no idea how worried I was about you.”

     “Knowing how much you worry about everything, I do have an idea,” Keith smiled, looking down at his broken arm. He sighed and looked up at Shiro with raised brows, “So who was driving the car? Or was it me being an idiot?”

Shiro’s smile fell and he thought about how Lance was going to visit Keith earlier that day. He was so worried about Keith waking up and hating him, but how was he going to react to Keith not even remembering who he was? Maybe he would just have to think up a reason for Lance not to be able to visit just until he figured out how to go about this. He didn’t want Keith to worry about a boy he didn’t even know being sad around him. 

     “There was another kid in the car with you,” Shiro answered. “His name is Lance. He is completely fine, you two are friends actually, but he is at school so he can’t be here right now.”

Keith bit his lip, “I have friends?”

     “What do you mean, you have friends?” Shiro smiled, “Of course you have friends!”

Keith rolled his eyes smiling, “Thank you for acting like I’m not a completely lonely loser, but not even my lack of memory can keep me from knowing the facts about that.” He let out a sigh and said, “But I guess I’m just staying with you temporarily? Why am I living in New Mexico with you?”

Shiro opened his mouth to tell Keith the truth, that he was just fostering him and they were only talking about adopting him. He then closed his mouth when he remembered when he first picked Keith up from the foster home. Keith was excited to hear that Shiro was finally taking him out of that hell hole until he found out it was only temporary. That was when Keith started to treat Shiro like he was responsible for everything that happened to him in the past. Shiro honestly felt like he was responsible for not being able to protect Keith from the horrors that took place in that foster home though. He left him there all alone to fend for himself, and Keith had no idea what terrible things were coming his way without Shiro to guard him from some of the other boys. 

     “I adopted you,” he blurted out before he could think of a better response than that. 

His eyes widened when he realized what he said. He opened his mouth to take back his words and tell Keith the truth but was suddenly stopped when Keith cried out in surprise and joy, “What? Are you serious, you actually adopted me?” He was grinning from ear to ear as he started to ask a wildfire of questions, “Do I call you dad? What all has happened in the year? Do I maybe have a mom?” he laughed, “I doubt it. You are too awkward to get a girl,” he grinned again, “Did I get an adoption party? How big is our house? Or do we live in an apartment? I’m fine with both, but a house would be great.”

Shiro felt overwhelmed by all of the questions, but he was sure of one thing. He wasn’t telling Keith the truth anymore. He had no idea how he was going to get away with it, but he was going to make sure Keith never stopped smiling about being adopted now. He started to answer Keith’s questions slowly, preparing himself for the lie of a lifetime. 

The next few days were filled with even more questions and answers that Shiro made up as he went, though a lot of them were close to the truth. Keith kept asking if his friends were ever going to visit him, but Shiro kept coming up with excuses about how they couldn’t visit during the week because of school, though the only reason Lance wasn’t visiting at this point was because Shiro told him that Keith was sensitive to sound and sight now that he was awake. He did tell Lance that Keith was being brought home on Friday, but he was going to hope the boy wouldn’t be waiting at their house when they came back. 

When Friday did come around, Shiro was excited to not only bring Keith home, but he was happy to finally be able to come home to Allura. Keith was surprisingly excited to meet Allura as well. On the ride home, he was looking out the window at all of the views of New Mexico in awe as he spoke to Shiro, “Does Allura cook good food or do we just eat takeout?”

     “Allura works from home a lot, so we normally get to eat home cooked meals by her,” he laughed a little, “You missed her learning phase, so you didn’t have to taste the food she used to cook that made me miss takeout.”

Keith laughed and sighed out, “She seems so nice… I can’t wait to meet her.”

     “She really is,” Shiro smiled, though it soon faded as he remembered another source of stress in their relationship back before the crash. He bit his lip and wearily went down the path of telling Keith the news that made him run away, “She is pregnant though… We just found out a day before the crash.”

He waited for a response, but when none came in a few quick seconds, he quickly started to assure Keith that this wasn’t going to ruin the family dynamics he was expecting to have at this point. Surprisingly to him though, Keith answered enthusiastically, “So I’m going to have a little sibling too?”

Keith laughed and continued to speak, “I mean, not real little sibling, but that didn’t stop us from being like brothers,” his eyes lit up, “I’m going to be a great big brother just like you were to me, Shiro. I promise!”

Shiro didn’t look to Keith though he was desperate to see what Keith’s expression was like. Was he faking it and was really feeling something sadder and darker, or was he actually excited about this all? He smiled and replied to the enthusiasm, “I’m so glad you are happy. Allura was worried that you would respond differently if you lost a whole year’s worth of memories, but she is going to be so happy to know that you reacted the same way.”

They arrived home a few hours later and Keith looked in amazement at the house. He turned to Shiro with one eye raised, “You could afford this?”

He helped Keith out of the car, laughing a little under his breath, “My family left me a will. I just had to graduate college to get it.”

     “Ah,” Keith mumbled out with a smile, looking back up at the house. 

Allura suddenly ran outside of the house to Shiro and hugged him, “I missed you so much!”

     “I missed you too,” Shiro exclaimed, kissing Allura on the lips before spinning her around to look at Keith who was leaning against the car. 

     “You didn’t tell me she was British,” Keith grinned, limping forward and extending his unbroken arm out to her, “I lost all my memory of you, but it’s nice to see you again.”

Allura made brief eye contact with Shiro, confused why Keith had a completely different attitude than the first time she met him. What happened in the year that he lost memories of that made him act so different? Though she was confused, she didn’t question it, only smiling and saying, “Keith I would hug you right now to welcome you home, but it seems like that would be more uncomfortable than welcoming. I am so happy you are finally back home, and don’t worry about memories, because I’m sure we will be make just as good new ones as the ones made your first month here.”

     “Yeah, I’m so excited!” Keith exclaimed, looking up at the house and starting to limp towards it, eventually needing Shiro to help him with the pain he was feeling in his hip. 

Allura winked at Shiro when he gave her a look to question what memories she was talking about. He already told her about how he messed up and told Keith that they adopted him, but she was fully prepared to go along with it with him, already having known that they were going to adopt Keith eventually if everything went well. 

They walked Keith inside and showed him around the house, showing him his room that was cleaned up a bit to show no signs of the disastrous night that led him to run away. He was going to have to stay in their downstairs guest room for now just because of his hip being a problem for him when it came to stairs, but he was perfectly fine with that. He was just happy to be living in a home away from all the boys in his foster home. 

When evening came, they all sat down for Keith’s first family dinner with his erased memories, eating steak that Shiro grilled in their backyard. Keith insisted on them eating their dinner outside since the weather was nice and he was sick of being cooped up inside since he was in the hospital. Keith even offered to help Allura plant a garden if she had time to make the back yard look prettier. 

This was the happiest Allura had ever seen Keith and the happiest Shiro had seen Keith since when they were both in the foster home together. Seeing him like this was seeing a ghost of his former self, one that was chipped away to nothing by a memory he didn’t have from the past year. What could have made him so miserable? Allura and Shiro didn’t want to admit it, but they hoped Keith never got his memories back. 

When it was around ten, Keith decided to go to bed, tired from all this moving around and also wanting to sleep to escape the pain aching all over his body. When Keith was in bed and Shiro had given him prescribed pain killers, he met up with Allura in the kitchen to talk about the past week they spent without each other and also the new Keith that was staying with them. He was actually more of an old Keith since he had a year taken away from him, but they considered him more new than anything. 

     “He looks really… rough. But he is taking all of this so well,” Allura noted, looking at the closed door to the guest bedroom Keith was sleeping in. She placed her hand over her still flat stomach, “I’m also happy that he is excited about the baby.”

     “But what are we going to do about actually adopting him?” Shiro put his head in his hands, “I should have thought this through. I mean, financially we can do this, but how are we just going to officially adopt him without him realizing it? We need his signature, right? He is going to realize I lied at some point!”

Allura smiled and kissed Shiro’s forehead, “Things will turn out fine.”

Just as her lips separated from his skin, there was a knock at the front door. Allura looked at the door, “Who could that be this late at night?”

Shiro sighed, “Who do you think wants to see Keith and knows he’s back in town?”

He stood up and walked to the door, opening it just a bit though he blocked the entrance of the house so Lance knew he wasn’t going to be allowed in. Lance looked up at Shiro and shyly asked, “Is Keith awake? Can I see him for just a second? I know he probably hates me, but I just want him to know how sorry I am for everything.”

     “Oh…” Shiro muttered out, looking back at the dimly lit house behind him. “No, Keith is actually sleeping now. Could you come back some other time?”

     “When will I be allowed?” Lance asked, frowning and feeling disheartened since he wasn’t able to see Keith tonight. Another night was going to go by with him hating him. 

Shiro shrugged, still blocking the doorway, “I don’t know… Maybe when he comes back to school. We are trying to fix everything within our family right now and we don’t want him to be too stressed out.”

     “But, I just want to apologize,” Lance argued, “That will just take off less stress won’t it? I won’t even ask for him to forgive me!”

Shiro shook his head and started to close the door, “I’ll tell him you came by. Don’t try to contact him, please.”

     “But-!” Lance shouted right before the door closed. 

Lance stared at the closed door, breathless and angry that Shiro was keeping him from seeing Keith. He couldn’t keep the two of them apart forever! Did he think that he was going to swoop him up and drive him away again? Did he think that he was going to make Keith want to run away just by being around him? 

Lance stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, stalking back to his mom’s minivan that he was borrowing until he saved up enough money to buy another cheap truck. He opened up the door to the driver’s side of the car until a terrible but tempting idea popped up in his head. He stared back up at the house and to Keith’s room before he slammed the car door and walked back up to the house. He was about to do something incredibly stupid, but nothing was going to stop him at this point to see Keith and apologize to him for everything. He loved Keith. He wanted Keith to know that. He wanted to know if Keith still loved him too. 

He followed the route that Keith climbed up the night they ran away, climbing up the brick column of the house and onto the roof before walking over to the already unlocked window that led into Keith’s room. Lance peered in for a moment, nose pressed up to the glass as he looked around the room to see that Keith wasn’t in there. He stepped back a bit, mind racing to think about where else Keith could be. 

Could he be staying downstairs due to injuries? Was there a guest room he could have been staying in? Lance felt strange for snooping around the house of a kid he met a few weeks ago, but he needed to see Keith tonight or else he wasn’t going to get any sleep until whenever he was allowed to see Keith again and apologize to him. 

Lance hopped down from the roof and sneaked around to the back of the house, drawn by a dimly lit room with the blinds partially open. Lance crept up to it and looked through the glass, feeling like such a creeper, but inside, he saw Keith laying in bed, the room too dark to see anything else. 

To his luck, the window was unlocked, probably once being another one of Keith’s means of sneaking in and out of the house. He slipped the window open and crept into the room, being as silent as possible until he was by Keith’s bedside. He poked Keith’s cheek, that being the only thing he was sure wasn’t in too much pain. When that didn’t work, he moved on to holding Keith’s hand, causing Keith to jerk awake, in a daze due to pain medicine. 

     “Shiro?” Keith questioned before his eyes adjusted to the darkness around him and he could see that the person hovering over him wasn’t Shiro. In fact, he didn’t know the person in front of him at all. Keith’s eyes widened and he sat up quickly, groaning out in pain before shouting out, “Who are you? Shiro!”

Lance quickly covered Keith’s mouth before too much sound came out, “Hey, calm down, it’s me, Lance! I just came to see how you were doing, but I had to sneak in because Shiro wouldn’t let me in.”

Keith shook his head, looking down, “I don’t remember you. I don’t know who you are. Why are you in my room?”

Lance’s smile fell, “Wait… Are you messing with me? Or do you have amnesia? Because that would be incredibly cheesy if you actually got amnesia.”

     “What?” Keith questioned, heart beating faster and faster by the second. “I-I have amnesia… The doctors said I lost a year of memories, so yeah, I probably don’t remember you,” he shook his head looking down. “You need to get out of my room.”

     “No Keith, just listen to me. I have to tell you things that you need to know,” Lance said, voice cracking as tears threatened to break from his eyes. 

     “What could possibly be important enough to break into my house to tell me?” Keith asked, fighting to stay awake when his pain medicine was forcing his eyes closed every few seconds. 

Lance sat down on the edge of the bed, “Well now that you lost your memories, I don’t know what to tell you… Do you seriously not remember anything about me?”

     “I don’t even know your name,” Keith muttered out, sniffling. “Why can’t you just wait until tomorrow to talk to me when I am not so tired to listen to you? It also scares me that would sneak into my house in the first place.”

Lance felt his emotions swell up within in, making him sniffle as he explained his barely reasonable story to Keith, “I’m Lance. We’re…. We’re boyfriends. We love each other. And I had to sneak in because Shiro wouldn’t let me in.”

     “We love each other?” Keith questioned, laughing a little though it was sarcastic, “Please, I don’t love anyone. I’ve only lived here a month. And if Shiro didn’t let you in, then it was probably for good reason.”

     “But we did love each other. I love you, Keith. It was my fault for the crash, and I’m so sorry, but I just need you to know that I still love you,” Lance quickly said, standing up as if that would raise the importance of his point. 

Keith only sunk down in his bed, afraid that the strange boy in front of him was going to hurt him if he refused to talk to him. He was going to have to stay safe for now and do what he wanted with his body in such bad shape, “Ok, I.. I believe you, but can we maybe talk about this another day when I’m not drugged up on pain pills and exhausted? I’m just not in my right mind now…”

Lance sighed, “Ok…” he leaned in close to Keith, “Can you not tell Shiro about me though?”

Keith nodded his head quickly, “I won’t. I probably won’t even remember tonight because I’m so tired, so don’t worry,” he smiled to assure the anxious boy. 

Lance let out a sigh of relief and smiled, “I’m just so happy you are alive… I’d kiss you right now, but you probably don’t want that,” he started to walk towards the open window, “I know this means nothing to you, but I love you Keith. I love you so much.”

     “I… It was nice to meet you, I guess,” Keith looked down at his hands, hoping that the next time he looked up, Lance would be gone. 

Lance could see Keith’s obvious discomfort and he felt his heart sting with the pain of rejection as he started to climb out of the window. He closed it behind him and walked back to his car, immediately regretting his decision of ever sneaking into Keith’s house. How was that a good idea even if Keith did have his memories? 

Why didn’t Shiro tell him about Keith’s amnesia? Was that why he didn’t want him to see Keith? Because all of this was really overwhelming or was it for his sake since Shiro knew it would hurt him that Keith didn’t remember who he was? 

Well no matter what Shiro thought, that was definitely how Lance felt. Lance climbed into the car and shut himself in, slamming his hands on the steering wheel and resting his head lightly on his fingers as he started to sob to himself, mad at himself for everything he caused. Because of him, Keith was hurt like this. Because of him, Keith couldn’t remember a whole year of his life. Because of him, everything was ruined. He always ruined everything. Nothing good ever lasted once he got his hands on it, and now Keith was his most recent ruined mess. 

It was time he stopped making a mess of everything. He couldn’t risk ruining anything else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment for next chapter!  
> Sorry this was mainly a brogane chapter, but more klance will happen now I promise.


	11. The Benefit Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Eleven_ **

A week had passed since Keith had come home from the hospital, and he both surprisingly and thankfully didn’t have another encounter with the boy that sneaked into his house in the middle of the night announcing his love for him. Keith had remembered the whole event, but he did keep his promise of not telling Shiro about it. He had no idea how he’d even tell Shiro that the boy that crashed the car and claimed that he was his boyfriend and they loved each other had sneaked into his room to tell him all of this despite Shiro not letting him inside. 

Keith was getting better though. He was able to walk around the house without Shiro worrying about him collapsing or losing his balance due to his hip. He still had trouble getting up and down the stairs, but he could manage it on his own at this point. He wasn’t in as much pain anymore, which meant that he would be able to go back to school without too many problems. 

     “Shiro, please let me go to school tomorrow!” Keith whined out, leaning against a chair and turning to Allura for help. “Allura please tell him that I need my education! I need socialization! I need… what’s another big word that is necessary for a teenager’s life?”

     “Change of location?” Allura shrugged, smiling and turning to Shiro, “It rhymes.”

Shiro frowned and placed his hands on his hips in a stubborn stance, “You just want to see your friends. You can wait until you are officially better to meet them.”

Keith groaned out, “But you and Allura are going to work tomorrow and I am going to be all alone at the house… And I just want to meet my friends! Please? Pretty please? Do it or else I’ll call you dad.”

Shiro cringed and quickly answered, “Fine, but you are coming home after lunch. I can’t have you too stressed out.”

     “Isn’t that a bit too protective?” even Allura asked, tilting her head and staring at Shiro with a worried look. 

He shook his head with his lips firm together, “Honestly considering the fact that I was thinking about homeschooling him after this incident, you should be thankful I’m even letting you go until lunch.”

Keith pouted and sat down on the couch slowly, “Fine, thank you for letting me go until lunch. But after tomorrow, you gotta let me go the full day, ok?”

Shiro frowned and crossed his arms, “Depends on how tomorrow goes.”

Allura sighed, “Yes, Keith, you can go the full day Tuesday. Shiro just needs to trust that your friends won’t get into any wrecks in the cafeteria.”

~(***)~

     “Lance… You have to wake up, take a shower, eat food, do something,” Hunk sighed, looking at his friend who was rolled over in bed with the covers up to his neck. 

Lance had locked himself in his room for the past week, only leaving to go to school but then skipping practice and going back home. His dad found out he had skipped practice for five days in the row and grounded him for the next three weeks. Lance didn’t mind though since he didn’t feel like doing anything anyways. 

Hunk pulled the covers off of him, “Come on Lance, school starts in an hour.”

     “I live five minutes from the school, wake me up in thirty minutes,” Lance mumbled, shoving Hunk off of him with one roll of the shoulder. 

Hunk huffed and sat down, “Can you at least tell me why you are being like this?”

Lance ignored him. 

Hunk leaned down and lifted one of Lance’s eyelids open with a finger as he said, “I’ll fix you banana nut muffins if you wake up and take a shower.”

Lance opened his eyes to Hunk’s attention this time, mumbling out a soft, “Will you really?”

Hunk smiled and nodded his head, “Hurry up though so you have time to enjoy them.”

     “Ok,” Lance gave a fake smile, getting up out of bed. He lazily walked over to the bathroom where a shower could be heard turning on after he closed the door. 

Hunk sighed and left his room, going downstairs in hope of there being a banana muffin mix in the pantry, so he could fulfill his end of the promises. If not, he was going to have to call Katie to just pick something up for Lance to give to him at school. Lance had told him the whole story of what happened when he sneaked into Keith’s room that night a week ago and found out Keith had lost all of his memories of the past year. At first, he thought it was a good thing that Keith forget fighting with Lance and everything that went down, but when he found out about everything that happened when they ran away, he realized why Lance was so sad. 

He spent the next twenty minutes fixing the muffins and laying a few out for Lance and packing up the rest for Katie, himself, Lance, and others interested in a muffin snack at lunch. Lance came downstairs wearing a wrinkled up t-shirt with the words written in barely distinguishable handwriting, ‘Misunderstood Poison’. 

     “Umm…” Hunk tilted his head, “A graphic tee? Are you going for a new look?” His eyes widened, “I have nothing against it of course.”

It really was a new look for Lance though. Lance normally wore stuff that looked like it belonged to a kid right out of an American Eagle magazine. He wore the kind of stuff that always looked cool in the magazine but was always impossible to find in the store. What was he doing wearing what could be found on a rack of twenty of the same graphic tees at Hot Topic? Was this really how bad his sadness over Keith was getting?

Lance looked down at his shirt and picked up the collar with his two fingers to bring it to his nose and smell it. Hunk squinted his eyes in confusion at the action before Lance explained himself, “This is Keith’s shirt… It still smells like Keith.”

     “Lance…” Hunk muttered out, stepping closer. This wasn’t something a simple breakfast of banana muffins could fix. A hug was also something that wouldn’t be able to fix the problems at hand, but he was still going to make an effort to try. He hugged Lance and spoke softly, “Keith is going to remember everything. He’s going to come back to school and be completely fine too and not be mad at you either.”

     “How do you know?”

     “Because have you ever seen a movie where a character gets amnesia and they don’t get their memories back?”

Lance kept hugging Hunk, but he answered back with, “Fifty First Dates… Men in Black… Finding Nemo,” his nose scrunched up like he was about to cry, “The Vow,” he started crying. Hunk hugged him tighter, checking his watch for the time, “Ok, how about we visit Keith today and help him remember us? We can even bring him cafeteria food to trigger his memories.”

     “Shiro doesn’t want me around...I understand why,” Lance sniffled, smelling the banana nut muffins on the kitchen counter and walking over to them to start eating them for comfort food. 

He ate his two muffins through his tears, just staring at Hunk and being the most pitiful image Hunk had ever seen. Hunk texted Katie to bring Lance some Starbucks as well, because he was still a code red mess of emotions just like he had been all week long. 

Hunk managed to get out the door and to school with ten minutes still remaining of free time in the morning. Katie was waiting outside of the school for them with caramel coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, only looking up from it when she heard Hunk and Lance approaching. 

Lance faked a smile when he approached and joked, “Wow, Katie with a starbucks? Now that’s something I thought I’d never see.”

She huffed and handed it to him, “It’s for you, dumby. I’m so thoughtful.”

     “You are, thank you,” Lance smiled, taking it from her. 

He turned to Hunk and smiled, “Thanks bud for cheering me up. I’m actually a little less depressing now.”

Hunk smiled a warm and soft smile, tilting his head as he replied, “That’s-!”

He stopped abruptly when his eyes wondered to someone behind Lance, someone walking behind him that made even Hunk look surprised and slightly afraid. Confused, Lance followed his eyes and turned around to see Keith getting out of the car and waving goodbye to Shiro with a bright smile on his face. 

Lance’s eyes widened and his skin paled like he saw a ghost. He quickly turned to Hunk and whispered out in a harsh voice, “It’s Keith! What is he doing here? What do I do?”

     “You go up to him and say hi,” Katie answered, watching Keith walk into the school with a nervous smile still on his face. 

Lance shook his head, “No, I can’t! I snuck into his house last week; he is probably afraid of me!”

     “Well do you want him to make friends with another group of people or him possibly be all alone on his first day back with no memories?” Katie asked, stepping back a bit in an attempt to get everyone walking in the direction of Keith and the entrance to the school. 

Lance looked to Hunk for some help that he was expecting would be on his side, but Hunk only agreed with Katie by ushering Lance to start walking in the direction of the entrance of the school as he said, “Katie is right, you gotta just make up for it by helping him out on what is going to be a very stressful day for him! Make a good second impression.”

Lance grimaced and walked forward with Hunk and Katie both pushing and walking behind him, muttering out words of encouragement the whole way to the doors. By the time they were inside the building and had caught up with the now scared boy frozen in the lobby, Lance was feeling like maybe talking to Keith wouldn’t be as bad as he was making himself feel. He walked up to Keith and tapped him on the shoulder, his whole body working in stiff movements as if he was a tin man when he touched Keith. 

Keith turned around with a worried expression until he caught sight of Lance and jumped back a bit, “It’s you!” he exclaimed. 

     “The guy that snuck into your house, sorry about that,” Lance admitted who he was in Keith’s eyes, also adding another fact that would worsen his chances with Keith but would at least put everything out in the open right up front, “And the guy that crashed the car and caused you to lose all of your memories of the past year.”

Keith nodded his head awkwardly, “Yeah, sorry I freaked out that night. You probably sneaking into my house in the middle night was a normal thing for us back when I knew who you were. I don’t know why Shiro didn’t tell you about my memories.”

Lance nodded his head, laughing awkwardly, “Yeah….”

A silence filled the space between them, becoming suffocating and too much to bear for both Katie and Hunk. Before all chances of Lance and Keith being anything again disappeared into them just being acquaintances that couldn’t hold anything but a short conversation together, Hunk quickly stepped up and introduced himself, “I’m Hunk, and this short girl here is Katie. We are also your friends, and the four of us sit at a lunch table together. We can help you out today since you don’t remember much, and Lance knows your schedule so he can help you to all your classes too.”

     “I do?” Lance questioned, face turning bright red when he thought Hunk was exposing him to Keith for knowing his full schedule for stalking purposes back when he thought his feelings for Keith were unrequited. 

Keith put a hand up and quickly said, “It’s fine! I am just walking to my classes and telling my teachers about my predicament and then I’ll just sit in the back of the class and sleep or something. I couldn’t even bring my backpack to school today because of my shoulder hurting too much.”

     “Tomorrow we can help you with all that!” Katie spoke up, “Consider Lance your personal assistant for the next few months while you heal. He has nothing else better to do in between classes.”

     “Hey!” Lance retorted, but was cut off by Hunk placing his hands on his shoulders and saying, “You don’t.”

Keith looked down, probably feeling awkward being paired up with the guy that sneaked into his house a week prior to their second meeting. Still though, this was probably the only friend group he had to choose from so he had to play it safe and go along with whatever they wanted for now. He tilted his head a bit, wincing when his movements were too much, “I need the help, so I would really appreciate it. I promise I won’t take too much of an advantage of you.”

Keith laughed a little and looked down, “Can you maybe show me to where my Spanish class is? I’m bad with directions so it would be helpful to have a tour guide.”

     “We’ll leave you two to it,” Hunk called out, starting to walk away with Katie. They waved to Lance who was silently screaming at the both of them with his wide and desperate eyes as they walked away.

He took a deep breath and looked back to Keith, “Well, right this way to the language hall then, I guess.”

Lance helped explain the situation Keith was in to his Spanish teacher and to all of Keith’s other teachers that he had before lunch. Before they went to the cafeteria to eat, Lance also gave Keith a tour of the school and let him meet his after lunch teachers he wouldn’t get the chance to get to today since he was leaving. After that, they went to the cafeteria where Hunk had done Lance the favor of getting food for both him and Keith while they were off talking to teachers. 

When they got there, Keith immediately turned into a shell of his previously excited self, becoming instantly quiet and scared of the crowd of kids in front of him. He stepped closer to Lance out of fear and muttered to him, “I hate crowds. How did I eat lunch here before?”

     “We had to drag you here sometimes,” Lance laughed, reaching over to pat Keith on his lower back before remembering his injuries and also his lack of trust towards Lance due to the stunt he pulled his first night back. 

Keith didn’t notice the move he almost made, but he took a deep breath and nodded his head, saying slowly, “I’ll try to deal with it.”

They walked over to the table where Hunk and Katie had already finished their meals. They both looked up at Keith and Lance when they arrived, smiling brightly for Keith and reassuringly for Lance. Lance made a tired face to show how he was feeling before helping Keith sit down across from Katie and sitting down across from Hunk. 

     “Wait, you guys got me food? You didn’t have to,” Keith asked, looking down at the piece of pizza that was in front of him. 

     “Nonsense,” Hunk retorted, handing him a banana muffin as well out of a bag, “What kind of monsters would make you pay for your own lunch on your first day back?”

     “Should I pay you back on my second day back then?” Keith asked, looking up with a smile. 

He meant it as a joke, but Hunk, Katie, and Lance weren’t sure since that was something he would have said genuinely and slightly in a rude way back when he was first new. They stared at him with confused stares until Keith laughed awkwardly and explained himself, “That was a joke. Sorry I’m not good at those.”

He looked down at his pizza and sighed, “I think I’m going to go to the restroom…”

     “We don’t have much time left,” Lance said, “Do you want to wait until after the bell to end lunch rings?”

Keith stood up with the help of the table, grabbing his food and saying, “I’ll just bring it with me. See you guys tomorrow.”

He then left without another word and a refusal to accept another word out of the lunch table either. Lance stared to Hunk and Katie with a grimace, “He hates me. It’s official. We are never even going to be friends again.”

     “He just went to the bathroom,” Hunk countered. 

     “With his food?” Lance shouted out of frustration. He groaned out and let his head fall on the table. “I’m giving up.. This is hopeless!”

Hunk smiled and patted his best friend’s head, “Give him some time. Remember how he was on his first day? This is the same thing except he is…” 

     “Adorable this time around?” Katie laughed a little. “He seems less emo and more happy actually.”

     “He didn’t even recognize his own band shirt Lance had on,” Hunk added on to Katie’s observations. “So now we know his emo phase was somewhat new.”

Lance sniffled from where he was laying his head down on the table, “Actually, he is still in his emo phase. He called me a fake fan when he told me to name five songs from Misunderstood Poison and I couldn’t even name one.”

Hunk and Katie had to try with all their power to keep themselves from laughing. They patted their friend’s shoulder, trying to console him as he wallowed for the rest of lunch about how he didn’t have a chance to get back the relationship he once had with Keith. 

They didn’t see Keith again for the rest of the day because of him leaving after lunch, but Hunk and Katie made sure to visit his house that night to make sure everything went well for him with his first day. They tried to get Lance to go, but he refused since he knew Shiro wasn’t going to want him around. He wasn’t too sure Keith would want him around either, so there was nothing that could be done to convince him to change his mind about going. He had practice anyway, so I decided to finally show up to that and face the wrath of his coach. 

Hunk and Katie still decided to go though to make sure Keith would come back tomorrow and hang out with them again. When they arrived and were welcomed at the door by Allura instead of Shiro, they were allowed in to visit Keith. 

     “Keith, you have friends who want to see you!” Allura called out to Keith who was in the kitchen looking through his old notebooks he used to draw in during class. There were no words in them to indicate anything he should remember, but there were a few drawings that proved what Lance said about them being together. 

He leaned back in the kitchen chair to see the front door, “Ah, can they come to me? My pain medicine is wearing off.”

     “Sure,” Allura replied, turning to Hunk and Katie, “Come on in. It is nice to finally meet friends of Keith.”

Hunk and Katie walked in, slowly making their way to Keith in the kitchen and becoming afraid of what his response might be to two people he didn’t remember and barely knew coming to his house after him knowing them for not even a day. Still, they greeted him like an old friend and sat down at the kitchen table. 

Keith closed his journal, “Can you two remind me of your names? I forget easily, sorry.”

     “Oh it’s fine,” Hunk replied, looking to Katie. “I’m Hunk and this is Katie. Lance tried to come, but he had practice until late tonight.” He leaned forward a bit, “How are you doing? How was your first day?”

     “It was good,” Keith gave the general answer, looking down at his journal again. “Lance is nice. You guys are too. I was surprised I have such nice friends.”

Katie smiled, “We’re great. Lance is the best out of the three of us though. You guys were stuck like glue together before the crash.”

     “We were?” Keith asked, opening up his journal to a page where he drew him and Lance holding hands in lawn chairs in what looked like a tree house. He took a deep breath and looked up at Hunk and Katie again, “Hey is Lance… gay?”

     “He’s bi,” Hunk answered, not caring about what Lance thought about giving his sexuality away without his permission, because Lance kind of already sneaked into Keith’s house and professed his love for him. 

Keith nodded his head, “Ah…”

He turned his head to look around the kitchen area and beyond, checking for Allura and Shiro anywhere in hearing distance. When he didn’t see them or hear anything that would indicate them eavesdropping in a nearby room, he turned back to Hunk and Katie and asked, “Were we dating?”

     “Still technically are,” Katie answered, earning a light shove from Hunk who then said, “Don’t feel pressured to do anything. We know he is like a stranger to you at the moment, so you guys can just start off as friends again.”

     “And you said he is at practice right now?” Keith asked, looking down at his hands that were fumbling together in his lap. He took a deep breath and looked up at them through trusting eyes, “Can you take me to him? If he likes me enough to sneak into my house at midnight and profess his love for me then he must be the real deal. I want to try to remember him again.”

~(***)~

Keith watched with wide eyes, his fingers wrapped around the wire of the fence in order to keep his shoulder in a comfortable position. He watched in awe at how hot Lance looked out there. Was hot even the right word for it? Was sexy a better word to describe what Keith saw when he watched Lance pull up his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, revealing the outline of abs on his stomach? Sexy was an understatement. Keith bit his lip and muttered out to Hunk and Katie who were standing beside him, "There is no way a guy like him liked a guy like me."

     "And he still likes you," Hunk added, not wanting Keith to think for one second that his feelings were one-sided. 

Keith gasped and sat down on the bleachers, playing with his hands in his lap as he babbled on, "But he is so hot? And I am so... not? And I'm sure he doesn't like me for my personality, because I can be really passive aggressive and petty at times! And my grades are bad, my-!"

He stopped talking when he realized why Lance probably liked him. His face fell and he went quiet. That was probably why Lance sneaked into his house at midnight. He wanted something. That was all Keith was good for, right? Of course he couldn't have escaped that kind of lifestyle even after being adopted. Hunk and Katie noticed him falling quiet and grew worried as to what Keith could have possibly thought of to make him sad. 

     "Are you ok?" Hunk asked, sitting down next to Keith. 

The soccer team was going in for practice, but they still had time before Lance would meet them up by the bleachers. Hopefully Hunk could fix whatever troubles were in Keith's mind before Lance had the chance to get involved. 

Keith sighed and nodded his head, "It isn't anything you would probably know about. And I'm fine, I guess, I'm just disappointed?" he looked to Hunk with a fake smile. "Disappointed in myself, not Lance, don't worry."

His words only made Hunk worry more. Why was he disappointed with anything? Did he remember something? Was he getting the wrong idea about something? Hunk opened his mouth to speak, but Keith stood up and said, "I just realized I left the house without telling Allura and Shiro. I need to go back before they think you guys kidnapped me and home school me."

     "But what about Lance?" Katie asked, looking to the school. 

Keith sniffled and looked down, "Fine... I guess you guys can answer this since you are so close to him. Was he open about our relationship? Or were we just friends with benefits?"

There was a silence from Katie and Hunk. They were speechless from the question, but Keith took it as an answer. It was all he needed to know that he was right. 

Keith scoffed, "I knew it. It's all I'm ever good at. I was wondering why a guy like him would like me, but now I know it's cause I'm an easy outlet to get off with."

"Keith, that's not-!" Katie started to say, but was cut off by Keith snapping out, "Who would sneak into someone's house at midnight if they weren't looking for sex? That's obviously all I am to him, and I don't want to be just a sex tool to anyone anymore! I'm going to use the loss of my memories to my advantage and break it all off. Tell Lance we are never going to be like how we were!"

Keith had never really yelled like that before to anyone. What was going on with him? He always kept his feelings hidden, but this time, he just couldn't keep it in. Hunk and Katie didn't look surprised though. Was this something he normally did before? What happened in the past year that made him so different? Hunk and Katie weren't even looking at him now. They were looking just next to him. Keith followed their eyes until he was face to face with Lance. 

Lance's eyes were wide and tears were forming in them. His mouth was slightly open as he muttered out, "Keith..." His lips were trembling and he looked like he was going to burst out into tears any second now. Keith stepped back, trying not to feel guilty since he knew what he was to Lance. There was no other possible reason for Lance to love him, so he had to end this for his own sake. 

"I guess you heard it, so I don't need to say it again," Keith muttered out, biting his bottom lip to keep himself from crying. He had no idea why he was about to cry over a guy he barely knew, but he knew he couldn't do it front of him. Without another word, he walked past Lance and towards the parking lot, ready to just walk home and hope he didn't get lost since he didn't know this town very well. 

The others didn't call after him as he walked away, probably caring more about the train wreck he caused Lance to become before leaving the scene. Keith limped to the end of the parking lot before he collapsed onto a bench and let his tears fall. He was sobbing. He didn't know why he was becoming a train wreck himself, but he could hear his heart screaming at him to go fix what he just ruined. Lance was important to him. Lance was everything to him. Lance was the only thing good to him in this world. He didn't know why his whole body was screaming it, but it was too late. He ruined it and he felt like shit. 

He hated feeling like shit. He always felt like it and even more so now with all of his injuries, but this nausea feeling that was sweeping him over because of what he just did, was something he couldn't bare. He needed to fix it. He hated how his mind was changing about everything so quickly, but he needed to fix everything that just happened and let Lance know that he did want to be like how they were again, no matter what they were. Even if it was just friends with benefits... 

Tonight, he was going to do what was apparently normal for them. He didn't want to do it, but he was going to have to do it to make Lance forgive him. He just needed to somehow find out Lance's address and which window led into his bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!  
> Sorry this chapter is so short and nothing happens, but hurricane Irma hit and I was powerless for a few days whoops.


	12. The Happy Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Twelve_ **

Keith was determined. 

When he was determined, there was nothing that could stop him from doing what he wanted to do. Keith walked to the nearest gas station and then asked for directions to the police station where he would get his ride home from Shiro from there. 

The gas station guy was kind of creepy and for a moment there, Keith thought he was going to be kidnapped but thankfully got out before he could find out if the guy had ill intentions. He walked down the sidewalk, looking down at the piece of paper he wrote the directions on. He was always bad with directions, so he had to be careful when he made any kind of turn. 

Half and hour later, he was at the police station, desperate to sit down and take stress off his whole body that was aching all over. He should have taken his pain medication before he left since it was already wearing off when Hunk and Katie came to his house. 

He walked up to the front desk and pressed his hand on the bell, creating a ringing noise that was fun to make throughout the whole front room. Since no one was there, he rang the bell again. He waited a few seconds for someone to come but was still all alone in the front room after counting up to thirty in his head. He decided that since he was alone, he would play the beat of jingle bells on the bell while waiting. 

Keith closed his eyes and laid his head down on the table while playing ‘jingle bells’, only stopping when he felt a hand take his hand off the bell and heard an older man’s voice say, “I see you are back and in better health, Keith.”

Keith looked up, eyes wide when he came face to face across the counter with a police officer that looked Mexican and had a gray mustache that matched his hair. Keith stepped back a bit and stuttered out warily, “Oh no, you guys know me by name here?”

     “You get lost a lot,” the man replied. “And you are Takashi’s.”

     “Ah, I am,” Keith nodded his head, looking down. “Actually I was looking for him. Is he here? I needed a ride home from school cause my ride left me.”

The man pulled out his phone, “I’ll check,” he looked up at Keith. “Is Hunk driving you now that Lance can’t be your ride? Lance wasn’t with you, right? He is grounded.”

     “Wait are you…” Keith paused and tried to think about his next words. “Lance’s dad?”

He looked like a grandpa compared to Shiro, but Keith was going to stay on the safe side and guess ‘dad’. The man nodded his head and smiled, “Yeah, I am.”

Keith mentally cheered for himself for guessing right. 

Lance’s dad’s phone signalled a text and he looked down at it, “Takashi is here. He’s in the back washing the car. He’ll be out in a second.”

     “Ok,” Keith answered, turning away to walk to a chair until he remembered his whole mission and turned back around to him. “Hey, what’s your address?”

     “My address?” Lance’s dad questioned. His eyes then widened and he nodded his head in understanding, “Ah, yes. So you can see Lance. I’m sure that’s fine since you probably want to remember him. Just don’t let him sneak out. I’ll write it down for you, but you can just have Shiro drive you there since he’s taken you so many times before.”

He handed Keith a piece of paper with his address written down on it and Keith thanked him and took it, quickly making his way back to a seat in the front room so he didn’t have to talk to Lance’s dad anymore. 

He waited for five minutes before Shiro came out from the back with a confused and worried expression on his face. He tilted his head when he saw Keith and asked, “What are you doing here? Didn’t Allura bring you home?”

     “She did,” Keith nodded his head, getting up. “But I went back out again. With her permission of course.”

     “Who did you go with? What did you do?” Shiro interrogated him. 

Keith sighed, not in the mood for so many questions, but he didn’t want Shiro to be mad so he answered him, “I went with Hunk and Katie and we went to go watch Lance at soccer practice and hang out on the bleachers.”

     “Is that all?”

     “And I left them to come get a ride from you because my painkillers wore off and everything hurts,” Keith told the truth though that wasn’t the full reason why he left. He didn’t want to worry Shiro with all that trivial teenage stuff though. He also didn’t want to tell Shiro that he was gay and worried about his previous/current boyfriend. He wasn’t sure if he possibly told him before the crash and forgot about it, but he was going to watch and wait for any indication on whether or not he should tell him again. 

Shiro sighed to that response and ushered Keith out of the station, “Well let’s hurry on home to get you painkillers. I was going to pick up dinner on the way home so you can pick.”

Shiro drove Keith home and they stopped by Arbys to pick up their quick dinners. Keith loved Arbys, but he also picked this choice of restaurant because he knew he could eat it fast and head to bed and then sneak out before it got too late. 

He ate his dinner and finished first, taking his pain medication and heading off to bed with goodnight hugs for both Allura and Shiro. Though he did enjoy the hugs to his new family, he was definitely kissing up to them so they wouldn’t question him or check on him for the rest of the night. He knew how Shiro worked, and if Shiro saw that Keith was happy, he wouldn’t bother him until tomorrow morning. That’s how it was at the foster care center. 

Keith laid in bed, devising a plan in his head on how he was going to sneak out of the house. He was still on the bottom floor thankfully, so he just needed to climb out of the window, but what was he going to do when he got to Lance’s house? What if he accidentally climbed into his parents’ room? What if Lance was in the basement or something and he couldn’t find him before he was caught and arrested? 

Keith almost backed out of this plan a million times, telling himself that it wasn’t that important and that sleeping was a better option. He knew full well that it was, but he kept deciding to go to Lance’s house anyways. That was his final conclusion before he got out of bed, put on his sneakers, opened up the window, and made his great escape out of the house. 

He stealthily ran alongside the yard, making sure no window could have a view of him running across the lawn for Shiro to see. He ran a few steps before his hip and ribs hurt too much for him to do anything except for walk. So he walked the rest of the way to Lance’s house, the piece of paper with his address at hand.  He remembered they drove past a neighborhood with the same name written down on the paper, so he went there, only having to search for the right number to be able to find Lance’s house now. Lance’s house was near the back of the neighborhood, but after a half-hour, he eventually found it and tried to decide a plan from there. 

He looked at all the windows, wishing that he would get just a sliver of his memories so he could figure out where Lance’s room was. He looked around for any indication of a room being Lance’s until he saw a window with a window sticker of a dolphin on it. It had a balcony in front of it that Keith could climb up on if he tried. He just hoped that Lance was in there or the window was open, cause there was no way he could jump down from there to try another way. 

Keith used the brick pillars of Lance’s house like a rock wall and climbed up all the way to the balcony, struggling to pull himself up on it, but managing to do so after a few failed attempts. All of his muscles were sore and his still healing ribs and arm hurt the most. He laid in a heap of exhaustion on the balcony for ten minutes before finally getting up and moving to open up the window. 

He looked inside to see the room was dark, only dimly lit by a lamp next to Lance’s bed. Keith peered closer to see Lance asleep. Keith smiled at his lucky first try of finding Lance’s room. He tested the window to see if it was open and easily slid it open. So night time escapades were probably thing between them before. That only further proved his theory that they were friends with benefits or at least just in a relationship for the sex. 

Keith hated it, but if that was what he was happy with before, then he needed to get it back. He couldn’t afford to ruin all that he had just because he lost his memories. 

He sneaked through the window and into Lance’s room, tip-toeing over to Lance’s bed with a plan to wake him up for apology sex. Keith was nervous. He hated physical touch. He never initiated sex, but his past boyfriends were almost obsessed with it. They went as far as forcing him into it which happened most of the time, but Keith couldn’t do anything about it in his situation. 

Keith shook his head and shut his eyes. Now wasn’t the time to think about stuff like that. He had to get himself in the mood. 

He propped himself up on Lance’s bed with his knee and shook Lance awake, whispering out, “Hey, it’s Keith, so don’t shout or anything when you wake up.”

Lance’s eyes opened and then widened when he peered through the dim air front of him to see Keith on top of him. His breath hitched and he asked in a slightly panicked voice, “What are you doing here?”

     “To say I’m sorry,” Keith said, taking the covers off of Lance and straddling his thighs. He smiled and placed a trembling hand on the front of Lance’s boxers, cupping him, “And I’ll have sex with you to make up for it, if you want.” Keith looked down at Lance’s boxers and peeled them back at bit with his free hand to see what was inside. His eyes widened and he looked up at Lance, “I took this in before?”

Lance quickly pulled his boxers back up and said, “Keith, you obviously don’t like me, so you don’t have to do this. I understand that you don’t want to be paired up with a guy you don’t know so just… go home.”

     “No,” Keith said, almost sounding like he was begging Lance to give him the second chance. He shook his head and started pulling down Lance’s boxers again. “I’ll do anything… I just don’t want to ruin what we had because of my stupid memory loss!”

Lance was confused why Keith was acting like this, being much different from his previous self. His previous self preferred to be alone. This was his previous previous self though. Himself from a year ago. What made him become so different?

Lance was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt Keith’s hand stroke his dick. He bit his lip and tried to control himself, reluctantly sitting up and taking Keith’s hands off of him as he said, “Keith please don’t do this. Hunk told me that you thought we were friends with benefits, but that wasn’t what we were.”

     “Then what were we?” Keith asked in a huff, looking like he was about tear up out of frustration. 

Lance sighed and placed his hand warily on Keith’s shoulder. There was no frightened response out of Keith. It was yet another thing that was probably caused by something that happened to Keith in the last year. Keith stared at him with a confused look on his face, staying silent and waiting for Lance to say something. 

Finally, Lance gathered up his thoughts and answered him, “We were boyfriends. Sadly, we weren’t in a relationship long before the crash, but it was a lot of fun. You were already one of my best friends. We… only kissed. We never did anything more than that and maybe a handjob. We weren’t friends with benefits. We actually loved each other.”

     “No one could love someone like me,” Keith rolled his glossy eyes, not believing a word Lance was saying. 

Lance shook his head and looked down, “I thought the same thing about myself until you came along and told me you loved me…”

     “I told you I loved you,” Keith muttered out looking down. He let out a groan of frustration and covered his face with his hands. “I feel so stupid, I can’t remember a thing! I’m just ruining everything that I probably liked here… like my relationship with you.”

     “You aren’t ruining it,” Lance assured Keith, pulling his legs out from under Keith since they were still scraped up from the crash. The pressure on them hurt too much, so he took them out of the covers too and moved so his legs were hanging off the bed and he was sitting up, leaning his back against the wall. 

Keith followed his motions and leaned his back against the wall, letting out a sigh, “I just tried to suck your dick to tell you I’m sorry. I’m ruining it.”

Lance laughed a little, “It’s the thought that counts…” He smiled and looked to Keith, “Do you want me to tell you about the past? So you don’t take anything the wrong way again?”

Keith’s eyes widened, “You would do that for me?”

     “Yeah, of course,” Lance grinned. “It would make me feel better if we talked anyways. It will be like old times.”

Keith smiled and nodded his head, “Ok then. Tell me about three good things and I guess three bad things that happened to me while I was here. No specific order needed.”

     “Ok I’ll start with bad and end with good,” Lance smiled, thinking about the many bad things that happened but also the many good things that happened. It was hard to pick from all the memories, but he decided to start with the only kind of bad memories and the very good memories in order to not scare Keith off. “Three bad things. On one of your first days here, you got lost when trying to get back home and ended up at my house where my dad almost called the cops on you,” he left out the part where a group of kids had beaten him up before he got to Lance’s house, “Another bad thing is that one day in art class, you had the smart idea to paint the ends of your hair red like the paint was hair dye, and you couldn’t get it all out for another three days.”

Keith laughed out loud, covering his mouth afterwards when he realized that Lance’s parents were probably sleeping in a room close to them. He grinned goofily and turned to Lance with his hand still over his mouth to quiet himself, “I’ve always wanted to do that, but I guess it didn’t work out?”

Lance shook his head, laughing under his breath, “Definitely not. I guess the third bad thing is that you tried to flip a knife in the air and catch it and you almost killed my dog.”

     “Oh my gosh, I love dogs! I’m so sorry,” Keith gasped. “Ok tell me good things so I don’t feel terrible about this for the rest of my life. I hope I don’t get that memory back…”

     “Ok, ok,” Lance smiled, feeling giddy that Keith and him were talking like nothing between them was every erased. I did surprise him that Keith loved dogs though, because he remembered one of the first things he found out about Keith was that he hated dogs. Was this another thing that changed in the past year? It was like a mystery year of horror honestly. He sighed and continued, trying not to think about it any more than he already was, “Three good things now. We had a two day sleepover where I helped you with Spanish and you passed the test the next day. Another good thing is that we went to the lake together. It led to the crash, but it was a lot of fun while we were there. And another one out of many good things is that we would always hang out at Hunk’s family’s ice cream parlor.”

Keith smiled and leaned his head back on the wall, “It sounded like we had such fun times together…” he turned to lance with a sincere look, “Even the bad memories seem better than the ones I have right now from a year ago. I just wish I’d go ahead and get my memories back.”

Lance nodded his head, “Same…”

     “I also want to remember the moment Shiro told me he adopted me,” Keith sighed, “That’s kind of a moment you never want to forget, you know? Being adopted.”

     “Adopted?” Lance asked, confused by what Keith meant by that. He wasn’t adopted. He was still just a foster kid. Did Shiro tell him he was adopted or did he get that idea on his own? Should he tell him so he didn’t get his hopes up or should he tell Shiro about this first?

Lance then nodded his head and looked forward, “Oh that’s right. You were adopted, I forgot.”

Keith laughed, “When you were confused for a moment, I got scared. I thought I was hiding the fact that I was a foster kid or something and that was a huge bomb drop for you,” Keith pulled his knees up to his chest, “But I’m adopted now, so none of it matters. I finally have a family. I’m so happy I skipped a year and got to wake up to the news! And that someone like you is my boyfriend that doesn’t care about sex?” Keith grinned, “I’m waiting for myself to wake up.”

     “Hopefully you never do…” Lance muttered out. 

     “Hmm?” Keith asked, hearing what Lance said, but not understanding what exactly he meant by that. 

Lance shook his head and turned to Keith with a smile, “I kind of don’t want you to gain your memories back, I mean. You are different now… happier.”

     “Was I not happy before?” Keith asked, worried that he was going to find out something he was better off never remembering.

Lance bit his lip and looked down at his hands that were folded together on top of his knees, “You were happy… not exactly when you came here though. Don’t tell Shiro I told you anything, but I think something happened to you before you came here that made you different. It hasn’t happened to you yet in your memories because you are happy now, but I think I know what it is.”

     “What is it?” 

Lance closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, “I… can’t tell you. You told me what happened to you, and if it were me in your position, I wouldn’t even want to know about it.”

Keith opened his mouth to protest the confidentiality between Lance and his past self, but worries of what Lance could possibly tell him about his past made him close his mouth again. He wanted to know what could have possibly made him so different, but he also didn’t want to become less happy than he was now. He nodded his head and looked forward, “Then I won’t ask. Hopefully I don’t remember either.”

Feeling strange about the sudden depressing tone, Keith straightened up and grinned, turning to Lance, “I should probably get back, since I have a full day of school tomorrow! I’ll see you in the morning?”

     “Do you want Hunk to pick you up?” Lance offered, watching as Keith scooted off the bed. 

Keith shook his head, “Nah, he doesn’t have to. I like riding up in a cop car though, anyways. It’s cool!”

     “It is,” Lance laughed, remembering when he used to love being driven around in his dad’s car when he was in elementary school and middle school. He got embarrassed of it in high school, but it was cute to see Keith so happy about something that he himself didn’t appreciate at all. 

Lance started to get into a position where he could pull the covers over himself again. When Keith left, he was going to try to get some sleep, but he doubted he would be able to. There would be too much spinning through his mind after everything they talked about. He would think about the stuff that was good for him to say, he would think about the stuff he shouldn’t have said, but most importantly, he would think about what he needed to say in the future to enable fortunate events like this one to happen more often. He was going to win Keith over and have a relationship in a better way this time. He was going to make sure Keith stayed as happy as he was now. 

Keith was halfway out the window when he slid back inside to Lance’s room and whispered, “One more thing.”

Lance turned to him, confused only for a second before he felt Keith’s lips on his cheek. He blushed and looked up into Keith’s eyes to ask what the kiss on the cheek was for until Keith explained himself, “You seem nice. Old me was really lucky to have you.”

Without waiting to hear what Lance had to say in reply to that, Keith ran to the window and slipped out into the night again, getting down safely from the balcony thanks to the brick steps on the pillar of the house. He then walked home safely and got back into his own room without a problem at all. 

He felt so much better now that everything was cleared up for him. He knew he shouldn’t have made assumptions in the first place, but there was no point in ruining his night by thinking about what should have been done. Keith fell asleep with a giddy feeling in his heart and an even happier feeling inside of him when he woke up the next day and went to school. 

He wished he had a phone or maybe made plans on where to meet up with Lance and the others before he arrived to school, but luckily, they were standing out in the front waiting for him. Lance didn’t approach the car because of Shiro, but Hunk and Katie got Keith’s book bag out and walked him over to Lance. 

     “You know, I knew you two would make up,” Hunk said, slinging the backpack over his shoulder after Keith said his farewells to Shiro and Shiro thanked Hunk and Katie before driving off. “You two always make up over night without even needing us to get you two together. That’s how it always is.”

     “Lance told you, I-?” Keith started to say, embarrassed, but Katie interrupted him, “Oh yeah, he told us everything. He went to your house in the middle of the night again to talk to you and you miraculously let him in and talked to him. Brave move, but you won’t regret it. He’s worth it.”

Keith smiled to himself, happy that Lance told a lie that embarrassed himself instead of telling the truth that Keith sneaked into his room to suck his dick and beg them to be together again. He didn’t know how he would feel if Lance freely told them that story behind his back. 

Keith walked up to Lance and patted him awkwardly on the arm, not feeling comfortable to even side-hug him in public yet but feeling the need to make some form of contact at least. He smiled and greeted him, “Hey, good morning.”

     “Good morning,” Lance smiled back, immediately falling speechless when they were now faced with the challenge to make a conversation on their own. 

Hunk and Katie sensed the awkward moment coming, so they quickly ushered the two ex-lovebirds inside and made the conversation for them until the bell rang. Then they were forced to leave the two alone to walk to classes together and make conversations themselves. 

Surprisingly enough though, Keith and Lance were perfectly fine if not even better on their own. Lance told Keith the good memories and left out the bad ones, also leaving out facts about the year Keith forgot that would lead to anything less than as positive as these past few days had been. Lance couldn’t afford to slip up and say anything that could ruin the only good thing that came about with Keith’s memory loss. 

When lunch came around, Hunk and Katie were surprised to see Keith and Lance hitting it off again just like old times just without all the angst. Keith was leaning on Lance because his body hurt and he waiting for his painkillers to kick in, and Lance was - no joke - spoon feeding Keith. Keith didn’t want to move his arms since they hurt, so Lance was voluntarily feeding him the soup of the day as if Keith was a toddler incapable of doing anything. 

It was cute though. 

Hunk and Katie were making jokes about it, but they were being careful not to say anything that would make Lance or Keith grow embarrassed and stopped. They liked this. This was progress. They were actually starting to wonder if Lance and Keith had gotten back together and were keeping it from them. 

Everything was fine until Keith’s eyes widened and he sat up straight, shouting out in surprise, “Wait, Lotor goes here?”

Everyone at the table immediately looked to where Keith was staring to see a tall, muscular guy in a football jersey with his platinum blonde hair in a high bun. They then all looked back at Keith, confused. 

     “What kind of name is Lotor?” Katie asked first. 

     “How do you remember him, but not us?” Lance huffed, suddenly jealous of this ‘Lotor’ guy for being in Keith’s memories and not him. 

Keith took the time to answer both of their questions, already getting up though, “His name is really Leslie, but we all called him Lotor as an inside joke nickname. He is… He was at the foster care center with me. He’s been there-!” he bit his lip, “He was only there for a month before my memory cuts off, but that is crazy that he is here now in New Mexico at the same school! What are the odds? I need to go talk to him!”

     “Keith wait!” Lance yelled out as Keith got up and ran towards the Lotor guy as if he wasn’t in pain anymore. Lance’s eyes widened and he slammed his hand down on the table in frustration and worry. “Dammit, I know that name. He can’t be near him.”

     “Lotor or Leslie?” Katie joked. 

“Both!” Lance shouted out in a hushed voice. He looked over at Keith now talking to Lotor out of the corner of his eye and then back at Hunk and Katie while clenching his teeth. “Look, you can’t tell him I told you this, and I’m telling you this now, so you side with me when I tell him to stay away from that guy who must be new or something. Keith told me about bad stuff that happened in his past back when he had his memories of the last year. He mentioned this guy. He didn’t say exactly what this guy did to him, but I have an idea, and I think he did something to Keith during the year of lost memories that made Keith different from how he is now.”

He looked over at Keith who was grinning and chatting with Lotor as if they were old friends. Lotor seemed confused as to why Keith looked so happy to see him, confirming Lance’s worries about Lotor not doing kind things to him. He clenched his fingers into the palms of his fists and growled out, “I’m not going to let him hurt Keith again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!  
> \- Lotor will not be a big part of the story or any kind confusion in the romance between Lance and Keith. He is just a small source of a drama that will appear in a few chapters. 
> 
> ~ Thank you guys for the comments about my safety in the last chapter. The hurricane wasn't that bad since the hurricane was only a category 2 when it came through my town and a few trees were knocked over, but a horse actually showed up at my door so that was a plus <3


	13. The Lying Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Thirteen_ **

     “So when did you get here to Cleveland High?” Keith asked with a smile, leaning up against the wall to support his still aching body as he looked up at Lotor. 

Lotor was staring down at him, not only surprised that they were together again a state away from where they last saw each other, but he was also surprised that Keith was even talking to him. Keith made it very clear the last time they saw each other that he wanted nothing to do with Lotor, and Lotor felt the same way. Lotor wasn’t planning on being passive aggressive towards Keith or anything at their first meeting in their new surroundings, but it wasn’t like Keith to act like nothing happened either. 

     “About a week and a half ago,” Lotor stuttered out. “My adoptive parents decided to move here.”

     “You got adopted too?” Keith practically shouted, eyes widening as a grin spread across his face. “I got adopted around a month ago by Shiro if you remember him.  We should totally hang out sometime! It’s nice to know someone from here. Do you have a group you sit at lunch with?”

Lotor nodded his head and grabbed tray of food from the lunch line, quickly paying and turning back around to Keith to answer him, “I have a group of girls I sit with. Are you alone like usual?”

Keith laughed and shook his head, “I have my group. I lost my memories of the past year in a car crash, so I don’t remember them or even getting adopted, but they are nice enough to be ok with that.”

Lotor stopped in his tracks. Keith turned around with a smile and watched as Lotor process what Keith said, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar as he muttered out, “You...lost your memories?”

     “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy,” Keith laughed awkwardly, looking down at the ground. “That’s why I was so excited to see you, because you and Shiro are the only people I know. I mean to me it’s like I just saw you a week ago. You are about a month new to the home, but now you are… tall and less dorky looking.”

     “And you… don’t remember anything past my first month at the home at all?” Lotor checked, leaning closer and slyly as if he was trying to peer into Keith’s mind to figure out if he was lying or not. 

Keith was unfazed though, just shaking his head and replying innocently, “Nope! Last thing I remember about you is the both of us discussing whether or not we should sneak out at midnight to grab milkshakes just for the sake of living on the edge,” he leaned forward, “Did we end up doing it?”

     “Grab milkshakes?” Lotor confirmed what ‘doing it’ meant, quickly nodding his head and averting his eyes. “Yeah, we did,” he stepped back, “Hey, I gotta go to my group, but I’ll catch you later, ok?”

     “Oh, ok,” Keith reluctantly agreed to him leaving, falling solemn as Lotor left his presence. It wasn’t like he could hold him back and keep him from ever leaving though. Keith had to accept the fact that even though he was stuck in the last year, people had moved on in that time and things had changed around him. They obviously probably weren’t good friends in the end, so it would be weird for Keith to want Lotor and him to be best friends or something just because he felt comfortable with him. He needed to start being careful of how he acted around people. 

When Keith was now all alone, standing in the middle of the cafeteria, he finally turned to the table to see Lance, Hunk, and Katie staring at him with curious eyes. They all turned away a second too late simultaneously, annoying Keith but also making him laugh under his breath before making his way over to them. 

He sat down at the table with a sigh as he slumped over, “Well at least he remembers me. It’s hard having my mind a year behind you guys. I think I’m better friends with people than I really am…”

     “What did he say to you?” Lance interrogated, eyes narrow and lips tightened into a frown as he tried to stare Keith down for answers. 

Keith shifted to the side a bit to avoid Lance’s stare and awkwardly replied, “We just talked about his first month at the home because that is all I remember. Why? Did I tell you something about him?”

Lance’s eyebrows furrowed, “...Maybe….”

     “Bad or good?” Keith’s eyes widened, hands folding together to fight off the sweat that was attacking his palms. 

Lance shook his head and bit his lip, “I don’t want to scare ya, Keith, but nothing from the past year was good until you came here.”

     “But did Lotor do anything?” Keith asked, pestering Lance for an answer that he had the right to know but also didn’t want to know since he was afraid of what could have possibly been so bad. 

Lance sighed and turned away from Keith, “I can’t say. Just stay away from him.”

     “Great, he attempted to murder me, didn’t he?” Keith asked. 

Hunk and Katie’s eyes both widened and they stared to Lance with an urge to find out what Keith’s dark past held. Lance wasn’t going to budge though. Even as Hunk asked, “Is that why Keith knows how to fight really well?”

     “I know how to fight now,” Keith debunked that question, sighing and putting his head in his hands. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know. It will probably only upset me. Make sure never to tell me no matter how much I ask, because it is best I have less to worry about.”

After he said that, Lance held Keith to that swear, not telling Keith no matter how many times he begged. Keith did a good a job of controlling himself too though, maybe wondering like crazy about what Lotor could have possibly done to him, but he managed to keep all of his questions in. He only managed to suppress his worries for two weeks though until he showed up at Lance’s window for the second time since after the crash, demanding to be let inside. 

     “What are you doing here?” Lance whispered, letting Keith in anyways. 

There was no way he was going to make Keith turn back when Keith felt comfortable enough to sneak into his room. In these past few weeks, they had grown to be how they were before, just fighting less and not holding hands or kissing yet. Lance was afraid he would get stuck in the friendzone like this, but he decided that what they had now was better than nothing at all. 

Keith climbed into his room and sat on the bed, speaking in a normal voice as if Lance’s parents in the next room were not a threat at the moment, “I can’t sleep. I can’t stop wondering if Lotor tried to kill me or something. He asked if we could hang out today, but I was too afraid because of the looming fear that he isn’t safe to be around! Just tell me I’m crazy and that it wasn’t that bad.”

     “You are crazy!” Lance exclaimed, losing himself in the moment but quickly reeling it back in when he realized they were supposed to be secretive about their meeting. He crouched into a whisper, “I’m not going to tell you, but you just can’t be alone in the room with him, ok?”

Keith stood up, huffing, “Well now I’m going to hang out with him in private to find out what he will do.”

     “Why?” Lance squeaked out, “What if he kills you?”

     “So he tried to kill me?” Keith asked, smirking when he thought he outsmarted Lance. 

Lance frowned though and shook his head slowly, “Worse.”

     “What can be worse than killing me?” Keith laughed a little, feeling too awkward to stay as serious as Lance. He sat down again to hear more of what Lance had to say, since he still seemed so serious even after Keith’s attempt to make the air a bit more light. 

Neither of them realized that Lance was still holding Keith’s hand, rubbing his fingers across the back of Keith’s hand, looking down and muttering out, “He did something that killed the happiness inside of you… And in my opinion, that is just as bad as killing you. I don’t want being with him to trigger your memories of what he did, and I don’t want him to do it again. Can’t you just… forget it? Please?”

     “Did he rape me?” Keith bit his lip, squeezing Lance’s hand now. 

He felt Lance squeeze back, indicating that the answer to his question was a yes. He looked Lance in the eyes, watching him as he finally answered slowly, “You… seem like it’s happened before.”

     “It has,” Keith nodded his head, looking down at his knees again. He laughed under his breath and tilted his head, “I’m sure I told you already, so I don’t really care about telling you again… I just didn’t expect that Lotor would be one to do that too.”

     “If you have been raped before then why are you so much happier than you were when you first got here?” Lance asked, confused now how Keith wasn’t treating this as big as he did before when he had his memories. 

Keith shrugged though and replied, “I try not to let it bother me. It has only happened three times in the past four years where I absolutely didn’t want it, but the rest is bearable enough for me to live with it all. Was rape a big problem with me before?”

Lance shook his head, now thoroughly confused, “I… You said it was. You said that terrible stuff happened to you and that you were raped. But you took it so much more differently than you are taking it now!”

     “Something happened to me that was rape or something happened to me and I was raped?” Keith asked, leaning forward in curiosity. 

     “Is there a difference?” Lance asked. 

Keith nodded his head quickly, “Yeah! One is where that bad thing that happened was that I was raped and one is where I was raped but I was also a victim of attempted murder or something!”

     “No one tried to murder you!” Lance answered, putting his hands on Keith’s shoulders to calm him down. He then looked down at their chests, almost touching if it weren’t for just an inch of space between them. In a normal situation, he would be a blushing mess right now, but he couldn’t bring himself to think about anything else except for Keith’s situation. He bit his lip and mumbled out, “I think…”

     “You think?” Keith copied his answer in the form of a question. 

Lance looked back up into Keith’s eyes and squeezed his hands on his shoulders, “Can you stay here tonight? I understand if you feel uncomfortable, but I don’t want you walking alone to your house at night. If you don’t want to stay here, I can drive you back home.”

Keith looked down at his hands, “Shiro fell asleep already… He’ll wake up by the sound of a car since he is such a light sleeper. I’ll get caught for sure.”

     “I’ll walk you then,” Lance started to say, but he was interrupted by Keith. 

     “What will your parents do if they find out I slept over? They probably wouldn’t like the two of us sleeping in the same room alone, right?” 

Lance’s eyes widened, surprised that Keith was actually considering spending the night with him given their known history together. Though Keith claimed he didn’t feel uncomfortable about it anymore, Lance could see that there were some moments where Keith was reminded of Lance’s feelings and he shied away from him. He understood where Keith was coming from, but it still hurt to witness it. 

He took the opportunity in front of him and answered Keith, “My parents leave early in the morning, so they won’t even know you are here. Plus, they don’t even know I like guys, so if they do see you, they’ll just assume we hung out and you stayed over.”

     “Ok,” Keith nodded his head. “Then I’ll just sleep on the ground.”

There was the part where Lance was reminded of the friend zone he was currently trapped in. He sighed and nodded his head, “You can take the bed. I’ll be on the floor.”

     “No way,” Keith argued, pressing Lance’s chest down and forcing him to lay down on the bed. “I can’t sneak into your room late at night, stay over, and take your bed as well! Did I do that before? Cause I’d hate to say this, but old me sounds like a prick.”

     “Well old you slept in the same bed as me,” Lance explained, looking down. He folded his hands together and bit his lip, “Before this gets awkward, I’m gonna get an extra blanket and pillow for myself and get on the ground.”

Keith pushed Lance down again before he could get up though, “We can sleep in the same bed then if old me did it. It’s not that weird, right?”

Lance shook his head, muttering a stuttered out, “N-No…”

     “Ok then,” Keith nodded his head, smiling and laying next to Lance. “Good night.”

Lance gulped and looked up at the ceiling, unable to look beside him at Keith laying down right next to him. What was he going to do if he ended up spooning him in his sleep or something? What if he snored and Keith got annoyed by that? He would lose all of his chances of ever being with Keith again after that! There were so many things that were racing in his mind, that it was impossible to feel comfortable. 

The only the that managed to break him out of his thoughts after five whole minutes of staring up at the light blue colored ceiling of his rooms was a kiss on the cheek placed by non-other than the boy beside him: Keith. Lance’s eyes widened and he looked to Keith, half expecting him to be asleep and that be an accident, but Keith was staring right at him, eyes wide open. 

     “Yes?” Lance awkwardly asked, slowly raising his hand to brush his cheek with his fingers. He wanted Keith to do it again, but at the same time he didn’t, because he wouldn’t be able to control himself very well after that. 

Keith shrugged and smiled, “You looked super uncomfortable, so I did what I probably used to do to you if I was a good boyfriend. Do you feel better now?”

Lance nodded his head slowly, muttering out a half-hearted, “Yes… thank you…”

He then turned back up to the ceiling to stare at it, hoping that Keith was looking away as well so he wouldn’t be able to see the close to crimson colored flush that was slowly affecting his face. For a moment he thought that maybe Keith felt something for him, but it was only a kind gesture to ease the one-sided sexual tension in the room. Lance just needed to do them both a favor and get a grip on himself before he ruined everything due to being too awkward to function. 

They both stayed there, bodies straight on top of the mattress, their hands folded over their stomachs, their eyes and head pointed up at the ceiling, and a silence suffocating the both of them until it felt hard to even breathe. That only last a few seconds though before Keith muttered out a barely audible, “I kind of want to make out with you right now. Is that ok?”

Lance didn’t even answer. He didn’t give himself time to answer before he ripped away from his still position to lean over Keith and crash his lips into the other boy’s mouth. Keith’s eyes widened in surprise, but he welcomed Lance’s actions all the same, lifting his hands up to cup his face and monitor his movements just in case he needed to push him off at any point. 

Lance felt for Keith’s hands as he kissed him, desperately want to hold him but not knowing what his new boundaries were. He obviously wasn’t going to grab for Keith’s dick or stick his hand down his own pants, so he took one of Keith’s hands off of his face and held it down beside his head on the mattress, tangling his fingers tightly into Keith’s . 

     “Tell me when to stop,” Lance breathed out, breaking away for a few seconds only to say that. 

Keith nodded his head, but wrapped his hand around Lance’s head to make sure he stayed put in front of his face from now on, just focusing on kissing him. They kissed until they couldn’t breathe, gasping for breath when they finally broke away from each other again. 

Lance fell back on his back next to Keith, his breath leaving in short breaths and coming back in big inhales.  Keith quickly turned to him and wrapped his arms around Lance, “This might not be the right time to ask this, but can we maybe date again? I don’t want to do anything crazy yet, but I definitely don’t want you to just be a friend.”

     “Are you asking me out?” Lance asked, eyes widening when he realized what was going on here. 

Keith smiled and shrugged, “If it’s an ego thing, you can ask me out.”

Lance shook his head quickly, “No no! I’ll take it! We are going out now. Thank you so much. I won’t let you down!”

    “You are so sweet,” Keith laughed, “I trust you.”

He rested his head on Lance’s shoulder, staring at the other boy with eyes filled with amazement that he was actually able to make someone like Lance like him. At first when he found out that Lance liked him, he was afraid that Lance would change his mind soon due to the loss of memories or there were other lesser pure reasons why Lance liked him, but after these past few weeks, he couldn’t find anything to fuel those worries and doubts anymore. 

Keith closed his eyes and pulled the covers over himself, mumbling out, “And sudden exhaustion consumes me.”

     “That was really emo,” Lance admitted, afraid that Keith would be able to hear how fast his heart beating with his head so close to his chest. 

Keith laughed and placed his hand over Lance’s heart, probably in an attempt to calm him down as he said, “Shut up, Lance… We have school tomorrow, so go to sleep.” 

Though his words sounded rough, Keith leaned up and kissed Lance’s neck to make sure Lance didn’t take his words too literally before retreating back to Lance’s shoulder to fall asleep. Lance laughed under his breath a little, trying to act cool even though he felt like making out with Keith for another hour. 

Keith was fast asleep already now, probably exhausted from worrying about Lotor. Lance wondered what Lotor could have done that was worse than rape, but he only managed to let that kind of thought process take over his mind for half an hour before falling asleep, holding Keith close to him as if this was his last chance to be able to do so. 

The next morning, both of them woke up to the sound of Hunk screaming out of surprise at seeing Keith in the same bed as Lance. Lance’s eyes widened and he sat up straight, worried that he was waking up in the car accident again.He had been having these dreams frequently, but they weren’t anything he felt he needed to admit to anyone. They were harmless. 

His chest was heaving up and down with quick breaths, but he managed to recover, staring to Hunk and shouting out, “Why did you scream? You usually wake me up in a nicer way!”

     “Are you guys?” Hunk managed to ask before Keith was up and interrupted him. 

     “Why are you guys shouting?” he asked groggily, leaning on Lance’s shoulder and closing his eyes again. “Why is Hunk here so early in the morning?”

Lance sighed and explained to the both of them in one sentence, a smile spreading across his face, “He is my ride to school, and yeah, we are dating again.”

Hunk’s eyes widened, sparkling with happiness before he ran up to the bed and wrapped his arms around the both of them, innocently crushing them together as he cried out, “Ah, finally you two had the guts to realize your feelings for each other! Pidge and I made a bet on how long it would take for you to get together, and I want to thank you both for making me twenty bucks richer!”

     “Glad to know why you are so happy, buddy,” Lance muttered out, patting him back on the shoulder. 

Keith slipped out from under Hunk’s arm in a desperate attempt to get away from the group hug. He liked hugging Lance, but that was it. He got up out of bed and tousled his hand through his hair to make it manageable, “What time is it? I should probably go back to my house before Shiro realizes I’m gone.”

     “Wait you ran away from home again?” Hunk asked, finally parting from Lance’s hug. “Yeah, I would definitely not let him find out that you left again or you are d-e-a-d. Dead.”

     “Did I do it often?”

Lance laughed under his breath, “Nah, it’s just every time you left you almost died. Shiro also doesn’t like me for that very reason, so…”

Hunk looked at his watch, “Can you maybe just text him though? Because school starts in ten minutes.”

     “Ten minutes?” Keith shrieked, eyes widening in a sudden fear. He ran his fingers through his hair for the hundredth time in the past two minutes, “Shiro has already left by now then! He already knows I’m out then! He’s going to kill me… He’s gonna kill me! I’m dead!”

Lance clenched his teeth, “Shit, shit, shit. He’s gonna kill the both of us.”

     “What are we going to do?” Keith fused, “He’s going to take me back to the foster care center… I just got adopted. I can’t go back there!”

     “Adopted?” Hunk questioned, grinning. “Congratulations!”

Lance elbowed Hunk in the gut, hoping that he didn’t say anything else after that, “He isn’t going to take you back there. He is going to ground you at the most.”

     “I don’t want Shiro to be mad at me all,” Keith muttered out. “Do you know how sad it is to have someone like him disappointed with you? It makes me feel like shit!”

Hunk sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, “Just tell him when you see him again that you got a ride from me because you had to go to a study session early this morning. He’ll be happy that you are trying hard in school, and he won’t question you anymore.”

     “Are you sure that will work?” Keith asked, trying to think about the many possible ways that could go if he told Shiro that. He was going to have to think about the exact subject they were studying and a good enough explanation as to why he forgot to tell Shiro about it, but it seemed like that could possibly work out just fine. 

Hunk saw the acceptance of the idea in Keith’s expression and grinned, tapping both him and Lance on the shoulder as he said, “You’ll be fine, now both of you need to get ready for school so we aren’t late. We need to have attendance as an alibi.”

Keith messed with his hair for a few more minutes while Lance got ready, giving Keith an extra shirt so he didn’t wear the same shirt he wore yesterday. Hunk drove them both to school, Keith riding shotgun since he was the guest star of the car ride this morning. They met up with Katie at the front door and as soon as she saw Keith and Lance walking up together, Keith wearing Lance’s shirt, she pulled out her wallet and immediately gave hunk the twenty bucks, accepting her defeat gladly. 

Keith ran to his first class so he wasn’t late only to realize that he didn’t have his backpack either now. That would make the lie a little less believable, but if Shiro didn’t notice that he didn’t have his backpack then he would be fine. 

When lunch came around, Keith shunned Lotor even though neither he nor Lance knew what Lotor did to him now. He knew it was something along the lines of rape or murder though, so he was fine with giving the new jock this treatment for now even with the lack of memories. Lance even made sure to let Lotor know he didn’t have a chance with Keith anymore by wrapping an arm around the other boy and glaring at Lotor as he walked by their lunch table. It seemed effective as well, because Lotor didn’t even dare approach Keith the whole day, sensing the new air directed towards him. 

When the end of the day came, Hunk offered to give Keith a ride back to his house while Lance was at practice, and Keith gladly accepted, unsure if Shiro would be there to pick him up today. Keith gave Lance a quick peck on the lips, not wanting to be too affectionate in public yet with their relationship, before running after Hunk to go to his car. 

     “Thanks so much again for everything,” Keith muttered a thanks to Hunk, looking back at Lance with one last wave. 

Keith turned back around to watch where he was going, but as he turned to look at the path in front of him, he saw Shiro’s cop car outside of the school, Shiro staring directly at him with both a glare and a thankful expression on his face. 

Before Keith could react, Shiro quickly got out of the car and yelled out to Keith, “What do you think you are doing?”

     “I’ll talk to you later,” Keith quickly said to Hunk before walking over to Shiro and muttering out, “I was just about to walk over to you. How was your day?”

Keith tried to pass off an innocent act, but Shiro was not having it. Shiro tilted his head in frustrated confusion and shook his head, “How was my day?”

He got into the car as Keith got in, shutting the door and turning to Keith, “Excuse my language, but my day was fucking awful thanks another one of your disappearing acts on me!”

     “Yeah, I realized I messed up when I got to school and completely forgot my backpack,” Keith awkwardly laughed, “I was going to call you to ask you if you could bring it to me, because I had Hunk drive me to an early study session, and then I realized that I didn’t even tell you I was leaving early with Hunk. That was a my bad.”

     “Didn’t you think about maybe texting me or calling me on someone else’s phone?” Shiro shouted, still angry. 

Keith shrugged, “I don’t know your number. Maybe if I had my own phone, I would have, but-!”

He was interrupted by Shiro snapping out at him, “That’s besides the point. I know you are lying to me anyways.”

     “What?” Keith asked, trying to act calm, but he knew Shiro was quick to believe and hard to lie to. Did Shiro hear him sneak out last night?”

     “I know you snuck out last night,” Shiro confirmed Keith’s worries. “I waited for you to come back, but you never did! I was worried sick about you, and I couldn’t even call the cops because you do this way too often!” 

Shiro slammed his hand on the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn at the car in front of him. He clenched his teeth and let out a long sigh, “One of these days you are going to be gone because someone kidnapped you or killed you or anything else bad, but no one is going to try to find you because they are going to think that you are just out doing whatever and will be back in a few days at the most. That is what happened when you got into that car accident. The only reason why people even started searching for you was because Lance went missing as well!”

Keith bit his lip and looked down, “Not even you?”

Shiro shook his head, lips shut firm in a tight line, “Allura and I were the only ones that tried, but we don’t want to have to worry about if you are alive or not whenever you feel like… well doing whatever you do when you sneak out.”

They pulled into their driveway, Keith looking down at his hands like a kid that had just been punished. He hadn’t been punished yet, so now he was just praying he would be able to get by without being punished for what happened. 

No prayers worked though. 

     “You were with Lance weren’t you?” Shiro asked, parking the car. “It’s always Lance, so there is no point in lying to me.”

     “What’s wrong with hanging out with Lance?” Keith argued, knowing full well that there was no point in denying he was with him last night.

Shiro let out a breath and tried to explain calmly, “When you are sneaking around with Lance, nothing good ever happens. You get hurt, he gets hurt, others get hurt, and it never ends well. I don’t want you hanging out with him! Can’t you just trust me on this and avoid him?”

Keith rolled his eyes, “So you want me to be all alone like I’ve always been? You can’t keep me all to yourself forever!”

     “Keith what are you even talking about?” Shiro hissed, looking at Keith. 

Keith put his hand on the door handle, ready to get out as he shouted back at Shiro, “All you’ve ever done is kept me from danger, but when you left, I had to find out that life sucks all on my own in the worst way possible, and I couldn’t have anyone to tell me that maybe it gets better and that there is hope! You were supposed to do that, but all you did was keep me from danger and make me believe I would always be in your protection!”

     “But you were going to be,” Shiro tried to calmly explain, trying to keep Keith in the car. “I adopted you, and I got you out of there.”

Keith shook his head, tears filling his eyes, “It was too late. I am honestly better off without you now.”

Without another word, he got out of the car and slammed the door, running towards the exit of the neighborhood to get away from Shiro. He immediately regretted saying those words, but he wasn’t willing to take it back yet. He needed time to think before going back to apologize to Shiro eventually. He needed time to cool off and forget everything about what Lotor could have possibly done to him in the past year. All of the stress he was feeling from that was making him say stuff he didn’t mean. 

When he exited out of the neighborhood, he ran into the woods so Shiro’s car wouldn’t be able to catch him there. He heard Shiro shouting as a car drove behind him, but he didn’t dare look back to see the mess he caused with Shiro. He would just come back when Allura had cooled Shiro down and then calmly tell him that Lance wasn’t a bad influence on him. 

Keith almost considered going to Lance’s house to talk to him, but remembering that he was at practice still, Keith decided to hang out in the woods for now to waste the time. He sharpened a stick with the zipper of his jacket and made a fake spear to pass the time, pretending like he was on Man vs. Wild to keep himself from going crazy with boredom. 

It was only when the sky started to grow dark when he noticed the eerie feeling around him. Someone was watching him. He could see the white of the person’s hair before watching him coming out from behind the tree, laughing awkwardly, “Oh, you finally caught me.”

     “What are you doing here, Lotor?” Keith asked, losing his breath from the anxiety he was feeling. He held his spear up as a silent threat to Lotor and stepped back. 

Lotor kept stepping forward, “Why have you been ignoring me at school lately? Did you suddenly come to your senses?”

     “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Keith played dumb, honestly not knowing what he would come to his senses about though. 

Lotor grinned and sighed, “Well I mean, we had so much fun back in the boys’ home. I was confused why you were treating me as if nothing ever happened. Looks like you couldn’t keep that lost memory act up for long though?”

     “I did lose my memories,” Keith explained, still stepping back though. “But Lance already told me everything I told him about you before, so don’t even try to earn any kind of friendship or relationship with me.”

     “How do you know he’s not lying?” Lotor asked, tilting his head. “He could be lying to you just to earn your trust and get in your pants.”

Keith shook his head and frowned, “Lance is not like that.”

Lotor laughed under his breath, “I see he already managed to do it.”

Keith held his spear firm in his hand, gritting his teeth and muttering out, “I’m going to hit you in the head with the pointy end of this stick if you don’t leave me alone right now.”

Lotor shrugged, smiling, “Go blindly trust Lance on his word. I don’t care. Just know that all you are is an unadoptable slut that is going to grow up to do nothing but give blowjobs in back alleys to get by. Just like I’ve always told you and just like you’ve always done.”

Keith eyes widened and he shook his head, “I would never do that.”

     “You can’t remember this past year,” Lotor sang out softly, bravely stepping forward. “You did so much stuff you wouldn’t even imagine! Maybe I can show you some of the stuff you did with me? It might even jog your memory.”

Without thinking and without even giving him warning, Keith swung the sharp end of his homemade spear towards Lotor’s head, knocking him to the ground. Keith stepped back a bit, but didn’t retreat, raising his stick in the air again and looking towards Lotor to try to find any movement. 

There were a few seconds that went by where Lotor seemed unconscious, but as soon as he opened his eyes again, Keith freaked out and slammed the end of the stick down on his head again as hard as he could. 

Keith looked down to see that Lotor was now unconscious for good, blood spilling from a cut the spear made in his head. Feeling relieved, Keith took a step back only to realize what exactly he had done. His eyes widened and he dropped the stick, “Shit, shit, shit…”

He looked around him to see if anyone witnessed what he had just done, “Fuck… Fuck…. Fuck!”

He grabbed at his hair and looked down at his shoes, wondering what he was supposed to do now. Should he tell Shiro? No, Shiro was a cop and they weren’t at good terms right now, so Shiro would definitely turn him in without the bat of an eye. Who else could he turn to? Who could he trust? Who… who kept his darkest secrets?

He turned to looked up at the edge of the woods and then back down at Lotor who was still unconscious. Keith rubbed his elbow and bit his lip, thinking. 

There was no choice. He had to go to Lance. Lotor definitely wasn’t dead, but there was no way he could deal with the aftermath of this alone. He had to go quickly though if he wanted to bring Lance back to the scene of the crime before the victim woke up though. 

Keith ran to the edge of the road and started running alongside it to Lance’s neighborhood, not stopping even when his stomach cramped and he was out of breath. He was in some deep shit right now, but so far he wasn’t regretting what happened one bit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!  
> Sorry I went on an unannounced hiatus. I went to the ER last week by surprise, but I managed to get this out.


	14. The blackmailed kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Fourteen_ **

Keith ran up to the front door of Lance’s house, breathless. He knocked on it several times in a rush before finally getting an answer. 

     “Oh, Keith?” Lance’s mom questioned, opening the door to the exhausted looking boy. “Are you alright? You look stressed.”

     “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Keith quickly greeted her, looking inside the house. “Is Lance home yet?”

Lance’s mom looked behind her and up the stairs for a few seconds, turning back around and nodding her head, “He just got home. Should I call him down for you?”

     “Could you please?” Keith asked, teeth practically chattering from anxiety. He wrapped his arms around his chest and waited for her to call Lance down, telling him that he was waiting for him at the door. She then turned back around to Keith with a smile, “Would you like to come in? Does Takashi know you are here?”

Keith shook his head, “He doesn’t, so I’m going to have to leave as soon as I ask Lance something about my memories.”

She nodded her head, suddenly being reminded of Keith’s memories, now knowing that Keith had no memory of her either. This was technically their first meeting, which was why he was acting different from normal. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Lance’s voice rang out over her’s before she could talk, “Keith, buddy, what are you doing here?”

     “Lance,” Keith breathed out, eyes wide with relief from seeing him. “I have a slight dilemma…” he looked out of the corner of his eye at Lance’s mom, “With my memories.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he stepped out in front of his mom, muttering to her in Spanish, “Dame un momento mamá,” before closing the door and stepping off the porch with Keith. “What is wrong?”

     “I need you to come with me to woods,” Keith stammered, holding Lance’s hand and trying to pull him in the direction of where he ran from. 

Lance quickly pulled away, looking back at his house to make sure his mom didn’t see Keith grabbing his hand. He looked back to Keith and sighed, “Is it an emergency? I just got home, and my mom won’t like me being out late.”

     “It is an emergency,” Keith assured Lance, biting his trembling lip to try to calm himself down. He dug his nails into his wrists to keep himself from crying, but that method wasn’t working. He clawed himself harder until he drew blood. 

     “Keith don’t hurt yourself,” Lance pulled Keith’s hand away from his wrist. He ushered Keith to start walking along the sidewalk away from the house. “Just calm down and tell me in full sentences what is going on and what you remember.”

Keith shook his head and looked down as he walked, “I didn’t remember anything. I just told you that in front of your mom, because I couldn’t say that I think I killed Lotor in front of her.”

     “You what?” Lance squeaked out, stopping in his place. “Where is he now? How did you kill him? I can’t be an accomplice!”

     “It was self-defense!” Keith tried, though he knew it was hardly any kind of defense. 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and groaned out, “I went to the woods to escape a fight I had with Shiro and he was there watching me… He then told me about all this stuff I did willingly and told me he was going to make me remember by doing all of it again with me. I freaked out and hit him over the head with a stick!”

They were almost to the woods now, Keith walking quicker and quicker every time his stress level increased. Lance’s heart was beating so fast he felt like it was going to burst from his chest. 

     “What do we do if he really is dead?” Lance asked, following Keith down the hill. 

Keith shrugged and turned back to Lance, “That was why I called you.”

     “Do you think I know what to do?” Lance asked, eyes widening in confusion. He threw his hands up in the air in frustration, “I’m not an expert on murdering people! In fact, most people think you’d have more expertise in that subject!”

Keith rolled his eyes, “Nope, this is my first murder too. So should we bury him or burn-!”

He stopped in his tracks and went quiet, looking down at the spots of blood on the leaves where he last saw Lotor. 

     “He...He was here when I left. Where did he go?” Keith asked, looking around them. 

Lance looked down at the blood, “Do you think he went to the police? Where is the stick you used to hurt him with?”

“It’s gone!” Keith exclaimed, looking around the whole area now, desperate for answers. He ran his fingers through his messy hair, “We’re screwed! I’m going to jail… I can’t go to jail!”

Lance quickly took his phone out, “Do you have his phone number?”

     “I don’t even have a phone!” Keith squeaked out, face turning red with stress and fear. His breath was coming out in low short breaths. He needed to solve this situation with quick thinking. He turned to Lance and let out the first idea that came to his mind, “Please punch me.”

     “What?” Lance stepped back a bit. “Since you're going to jail you want me to suffer some consequences too? I already got a freebie with the car crash, but Shiro would kill me if he found out I laid a hand on you.”

Keith shook his head and pulled his hair back, tying it into a small ponytail, “I need you to punch me, because I need to make this scene look like self-defense. If the police come to my door about Lotor, I’ll tell them he punched me and it will be my word over his at that point. It wouldn’t be enough for any of us to get in trouble.”

     “Would a punch in the face really be enough for you to be allowed to hit him with a stick until he was unconscious?” Lance asked, biting his nails from the nerves. 

Keith shrugged, “Do you want to break my arm as well?”

     “No, I don’t want to hurt you at all!” Lance snapped defensively, placing his hands on his hips. He then slapped his hand to his forehead and sighed out, “I’ll punch you cause it is better you have some form of injury than none, but Shiro is never allowed to find out about this, ok?”

     “That’s fine,” Keith muttered out, closing his eyes and getting into a fighting stance. “Now punch me as hard as you can so you only have to do it once.”

Lance closed his eyes and tightened his hand into a fist, “Just remember that I love you and I am hating every second of this.”

     “Same here,” Keith grinned, tensing up to prepare himself for the punch soon to come. 

Lance took a deep breath and pulled his fist back, tense in fear of hurting someone he loved. He had to do it though to protect him, knowing that a foster kid like Keith would be given no mercy in a situation of showing aggression to another richer kid like Lotor. Not in this town at least. 

He forced his hand back down as hard as he could into Keith’s face, punching the area around his left eye with as much power as he could summon up. As soon as his fist impacted Keith’s face, the both of them cried out in pain and stumbled back away from each other, Lance holding his wrist while Keith held his face. 

     “Are you ok?” Lance asked, looking down at Keith with wide eyes. He shook his hand off and ran over to Keith. 

Keith was on the ground, completely still and silent. Lance would have thought that he punched Keith unconscious if Keith wasn’t so tense. Lance kneeled down to Keith and placed his hand on his shoulder, “Do you want to walk back to my house so I can get you an ice pack? I’ll do all of your homework for the next month to make up for this, I am so sorry.”

     “Just hold me…” Keith muttered out, a tear falling from behind his hand that was holding his face. His breath hitched and he muttered out in a trembling tone, “For a moment there I thought I was back in the foster care center, but then your voice reminded me I was safe… I just… I just...I-!”

His voice hitched and he started crying, “I’m sorry!  I’m an idiot for crying… I asked you to… to fucking punch me. I’m being dramatic.”

Lance scooped his upper body up into his arms and shushed him, holding him close, “You are fine for being scared. I promise I did only punch you because you asked, but I’m still going to make up for it ok? I’ll do your homework, I’ll pay for your lunch, and uh… what else do you want me to do? I can take you to wherever you want to go within this town every Friday night as a little date night! I’ll pay.”

Keith laughed under his breath and buried his head down into his shoulder, “Just keep me from doing things that lead to me having to get punched in the face, and you’ll be good… I think I should go home honestly. I should lock myself in my room before the black eye forms.”

     “Sounds like a plan,” Lance smiled, helping Keith up. “Do you want me to walk you to your house?”

They walked up the hill together, but Keith then waved him off, “If Shiro sees you walking up with me and then finds out I have a black eye tomorrow morning, things won’t be pretty for you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning though? You can protect me from Lotor if he tries to use this against me.”

     “I will!” Lance saluted Keith right before realizing that he was allowed to give a proper good bye to his new/old boyfriend. He leaned in and kissed Keith on the lips, grinning and stepping back as he called out to the boy that was already starting to walk back to his house, “Good night!”

     “Good night,” Keith called back, smiling and blushing at the kiss Lance placed on him out in the open. 

Normally he would be embarrassed about such a small gesture, but honestly, he was happy that Lance stepped back from the kiss or else he would have probably tried to tear his clothes off right there on the side of the road. If his head wasn’t pulsing with an aching pain, he would have definitely followed Lance home to do something along the lines of that in his room. 

When Keith got home, he bolted upstairs to avoid seeing or talking to Shiro. That plan barely worked though because Shiro was waiting for him in his room, sitting on the bed with an expression on his face that made Keith know they were about to have a talk that wasn't going to be enjoyable.

     “I just took a walk,” Keith muttered, walking over to his closet and debating on whether or not he should take off his jacket. He forgot if he put on long sleeves this morning, but he noticed that there were scars his previous past year self made on his arms that were embarrassing to have others see. He knew Shiro had already probably seen them at the hospital or possibly even sometime before that, but he didn’t want to remind him of them. 

Shiro sighed, “I just want to t-!”

     “I don’t want to talk,” Keith interrupted him, not turning to him in fear that his black eye had formed already 

Shiro clenched his teeth and tried to remain calm, “Keith I just want to apologize for what I said before… I had no right to say the things I said to you back there.”

     “Is that it?” Keith asked, slowly taking off his jacket since it was too hot to keep it on, warily checking for long sleeves underneath. 

     “What do you mean?” Shiro asked, looking at the floor and nervously wringing his hands together. 

Keith let out a sigh of relief when he found he was wearing long sleeves. He let his jacket fall to the ground and walked over to his mirror to see what his face looked like, “I expected you to yell at me for running away again. You had every right to say those things.”

     “But I didn’t,” Shiro argued, standing up. “If someone said those things to me when I was your age and in the foster care system, I would have lost all hope of ever feeling like I mean something to anyone. The last thing I want is to cause you to ever feel that. I just lose my temper sometimes and… God, I suck at this whole taking care of a kid thing.”

     “Well you better get your act together, cause you are going to be a real dad in how many months?” Keith asked, thankful that his eye was only red now so he could turn around to face Shiro. 

Shiro smiled and looked down, rubbing the back of his head lightly with his hand, “Seven months... “

Keith put on a fake smile and walked over to Shiro to pat his back, “You will be better at handling babies. All they do is cry and ask for attention. You’ll have fifteen years minimum to get prepared for the day it becomes a terrible teen like me.”

     “You’re not terrible,” Shiro laughed, happy that Keith seemed happy enough now. 

Keith sat down on his bed, “You too,” Keith looked down at his hands, “You aren’t a bad parental-slash-brother figure to me either. I’m just moody lately because of my memories and this whole place being confusing, but I’ll grow to it. I promise.”

Shiro’s expression softened and he leaned over to hug Keith, thankful that this version of him didn’t flinch at the slightest move to touch him. Keith hugged him back as Shiro said, “You can take all the time you need to get use to this place. I’m always here to listen, just tell me if you want the brother Shiro or dad Shiro and either one you want will help you out.”

     “So far I like brother Shiro the best,” Keith grinned, “Save dad Shiro for little Keith Junior.”

     “Keith junior?” Shiro raised a brow at the name, though he was smiling all the same. 

Keith shrugged, “You are naming your kid after me, right? I’m sure Keith could be a girl name as well.”

Shiro laughed and stepped towards the door, wanting to leave on a high note, “I’ll put it on the list for Allura to look at. Good night.”

     “Good night,” Keith smiled, flopping back in bed with a frown resting on his face again once Shiro had left the room and closed the door behind him. Keith closed his eyes and put his hand up to his face, flinching at the tender feeling he felt when his fingers brushed across his skin. Lance had hit him hard. Lance hit him so hard he remembered something. It was just a glimpse of something, but it was a memory. 

As he fell to the ground, it was like he was being transported back to the boys’ home where he and Lotor once were. Someone had punched him even harder than Lance did tonight. The memory was blurry and dark, and he had no idea who punched him, but he knew it wasn’t something he asked a friend to do to cover up a mistake he made. This was something he couldn’t even protect himself from, because he was defenseless in the memory. 

It caused a cold chill to run up his spine, making him thankful he forgot that year. He just hoped he didn’t remember anything more of it. 

The next day, Keith stuck close to Lance, afraid that Lotor was going to pop out of nowhere with a lawsuit on his ass for knocking him unconscious with a homemade spear. At lunch, Keith even hid his head in his hands as Lotor walked by to escape the death stare he would have probably gotten if he kept his head up. 

     “So what happened to your hand?” Hunk asked, walking up to the table with his food. He and Pidge had an engineering field trip for the first half of the day that caused them to be late so they were just now showing up. 

Lance looked up from where he was resting his head on the back of Keith’s neck, taking advantage of Keith hiding his head to have a temporary makeshift pillow for himself. Lance looked at his hand to see four scars over his bruised knuckles from when he punched Keith. He then looked up at Hunk to say, “I punched a wall because my mom refused to order pizza last night.”

It was a shitty lie, but it was believable. 

Hunk laughed a little and sat down, Katie sitting down beside him as well as she asked, “Long night? You two seem really tired.”

     “I am,” Lance poked Keith’s cheek. “This guy is hiding from the prince of jackasses.”

     “What a nickname!” Katie complemented, looking behind her at the table Lotor was sitting at. “What made him prince though? He has long enough hair to be the crowned duchess.”

Hunk laughed, muttering under his breath, “Crowned duchess of jackasses…”

     “Ha,” Keith made an audible laugh noise to let them know he liked the nickname. 

He lifted his head up to say something, but a serious of horrified shouts and screams came from Hunk and Katie, making him fall silent. He tilted his head, “What?”

Lance pointed to his eye and mouthed out the words, ‘black eye’. 

Keith eyed Lance warily and nodded his head, “Ah… Yeah, you should see the other guy.”

     “Are we already looking at the other guy?” Katie shrieked, turning to Lance. “I mean, I’m not accusing you of anything Lance, but your hand and his face have matching injuries as if they impacted together.”

     “You guys really think I’d punch Keith?” Lance asked, eyes going wide when he realized he had done it before.

He clenched his teeth and shook his head in a desperate attempt to silently tell Hunk and Katie not to say anything about the time he and Keith got into a fist fight outside of the ice cream shop. 

Thankfully, they didn’t have the chance. But also not thankfully, because they were interrupted by Lotor sitting down at the table and saying in his annoyingly British voice, “May I borrow Keith for a moment? I want to talk to him about something.”

He looked over to Keith and smirked when he saw the black eye, “What happened to you? Did your boyfriend not like it when you came crying to him about what you did last night?”

     “Shut up,” Keith growled, standing up. “I didn’t do anything worth telling him about last night.”

     “My dick says otherwise,” Lotor eyed Lance, grinning. 

     “Didn’t know your dick could speak,” Lance snapped at him, glaring daggers at him. 

Lotor laughed under his breath and wrapped his arm around Keith’s waist when he made his way around the table, turning to him one last time as he called out, “Don’t try to follow us! We aren’t going to do anything except for talk this time.”

Lance stood up to follow them anyway, but Keith motioned for him to sit back down, grabbing Lotor’s arm and pulling him towards the bathroom faster. 

When they got into the bathroom, Keith pushed Lotor against the wall and said in a low growl, “What is it you want?”

     “What do you mean?” Lotor tried to act innocent. 

Keith wasn’t falling for it though, “Let me hear how you are going to blackmail me. That is what you wanted to talk to me about, right?”

Lotor grinned and stepped off the wall, “You are smarter these days. Also very rowdy and loud. I can’t wait to break that part of you again.”

     “You aren’t going to break me,” Keith laughed. “I’m adopted now by someone that will wreck your shit if I ever tell him about you. So what are you planning? Tell me or else I’ll leave you now.”

Lotor smiled and tilted his head, “I’m a good citizen, Keith. If I see an abusive relationship, I will tell the school about it in order to protect the party I care about from being abused. You should thank me!”

     “What are you talking about?” Keith asked, squinting his eyes in an irritated confusion. 

Lotor took out his phone and held it up for Keith to see, “Did you think you were alone in the woods when Lance punched you? I got it all on video and cut it down so it looked like he punched you out of anger! I didn’t expect this, but I’m glad I stayed behind to get the perfect blackmail.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed in anger, “I’ll tell them it was because of you!”

     “And you think they will believe you?” Lotor smirked, raising his eyebrow, amused. 

Keith looked down, “They won’t do anything. We are just two guys. Guys punch each other. It isn’t like they will think it is an abusive relationship.”

Lotor laughed under his breath and opened up his phone, pulling up a picture of Keith and Lance kissing in the woods. It was the quick kiss Lance placed on Keith before they parted ways, but it was enough for people to see that they were with each other. People could interpret it as a secret meeting in the woods that later turned into much more than a kiss. 

     “You have to delete that,” Keith demanded. “Both that and the video.”

Lotor grinned and looked down at the picture, “Now why would I delete perfect blackmail? Lance will get kicked off the soccer team both for being in a gay relationship and for being abusive in that relationship. What would his police officer dad do to him? Does he know he’s gay?”

Keith’s eyes widened, “What do I need to do to make sure this never get out to anyone?”

     “Glad to know I found your weakness,” Lotor mused. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling of the bathroom in thought, “For now, let’s start with something easy. Tell me where you live.”

     “Why would I do that?” Keith squeaked out, stepping back in fear. “Are you going to come to my house and try to kill me? I have Shiro! He’ll kill you first!”

Lotor laughed and held up his phone, “I won’t kill you, but remember what’s at stake.”

Keith faltered and looked down, “Fine…”

     “Address,” Lotor reminded. 

Keith told him where he lived, having managed to memorize his address by now. Lotor then let Keith go with the sound of the bell, writing down the address in his phone for later. It was time to play with his broken toy again. 

Keith walked over to Lance and grabbed his bookbag, holding Lance’s hand for comfort as he muttered out, “Can you come home with me today?”

     “What happened?” Lance asked first, too curious about what happened in the bathroom with Lotor to care about the reason behind the invitation to go over to Keith’s house. 

Keith sighed and leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder, “That is what I want to talk to you about at my house. Not here. Do you think you can come? Maybe even sleepover?”

     “After practice I can get a ride from Hunk and come over,” Lance bit his lip. “Shiro might not want me to sleepover though.”

     “Shiro is learning to loosen up,” Keith smiled, patting Lance’s chest with his hand. “Plus he doesn’t know I’m gay, so we’re fine.”

Lance laughed nervously under his breath, “Right…”

Keith smiled and stepped away to start walking to his class, “I won’t see you until tonight, so do good at practice, tiger.”

When Keith walked off to go to class, Lance turned back around, worry taking him over with what happened between Keith and Lance in the bathroom. Keith seemed fine and they weren’t in there for long enough for something too terribly bad to happen. Keith still did seem troubled enough for something at least mildly bad to have happened. And he had to wait until tonight to hear about it too… all while possibly having to deal with the death glare of Shiro. Tonight was going to be a fun night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!  
> I'll try to get back into the just posting on Sundays soon, but this Sunday I won't be posting because I have a week long competition that may or may not give me time to write. I'll be watching Season four though! Have fun with that you guys!  
> Thank you so much for all of your comments. Reading them makes my day :)


	15. The Outted Kid

**_The Foster Kid_ **

**_Chapter Fifteen_ **

The dinner table had a tension around it that could be cut with a knife. Lance would have loved to make it disappear with one cut, but he was glad there were no knives at the table. Shiro looked like he would have used it on him if there was one. 

The silence at the table was almost unbearable until Keith finally spoke up, placing his hand on Lance’s shoulder and breaking the silence, “So, Shiro, you look like you know Lance already? How great is it that we are all together again even with my lack of memories!”

Lance bit his lip and looked down, “Mrs. Shirogane, the chicken is amazing.”

     “Thank you,” Allura smiled, glancing at Shiro with an expression that silently reprimanded him for glaring at Lance. 

Shiro caught it out of the corner of his eyes and sighed, turning back to his food, “So are you getting a new car anytime soon, Lance?”

Lance shook his head and awkwardly looked down at his plate, “No sir, my dad probably won’t let me be behind another wheel until I leave for college.”

     “And where are you planning to go?” Shiro asked, as if this were an interview for Lance to get whatever position he was trying to get in the Shirogane household. Shiro knew. Keith knew as well but didn't know that Shiro knew. Allura was the only one lost as to why this was the most awkward dinner she had ever been to. 

She laughed a little and turned to Shiro, “Stop being so hard on Keith’s friend. That’s how you are supposed to act to your daughter’s future boyfriend when he comes over for the first time.”

     “Daughter?” Shiro finally broke away, letting Lance breathe for a few seconds. 

Allura shrugged and smiled, “Maybe. I’ll be able to find out in two months.”

     “How far along are you, Mrs. Shirogane?” Lance asked, happy to move the topic onto something else. 

     “Oh please, just call me Allura,” she laughed, “I’m only twenty-five.” She rubbed her stomach and looked down at it, smiling and muttering out, “About two months now. I’ll be able to find out the gender in about two months as well, so that will be exciting.”

Lance smiled and looked to Keith, “Are you excited to get a sibling? They are great, though I never got to be anything more than the anoying younger sibling. I’m sure it will be fun to be the older one.”

Keith shrugged and looked down at his food, still unaware of the tension in the room, “The kid won’t remember me actually living here, so there is no point in me trying to act like a good sibling.”

     “That isn’t true, Keith,” Shiro sighed, thankfully focusing on something else other than the presence of the boy that once hurt Keith at his dinner table. He took in a bite of his food and said, “You are going to be a great big brother and uncle to the kid, and I’m sure when you come back to live here after college, you will find it more fun for the kid to be older than just a toddler annoying you.”

Lance laughed, “My older brother did that. I preferred him after college than before college. I looked up to him more.”

     “You think I’m going to go to college?” Keith asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. 

Shiro tilted his head in confusion, “You think you aren’t going?” he laughed a little and looked to Allura, “If I could then you definitely can. You have the grades, and you can get enough scholarship money to last you a while-!”

     “And I can help pay!” Allura interrupted him, grinning and turning to Keith. “I’ll pay for your college, so don’t you worry about a thing. You should still try for scholarships, but don’t worry about choosing a school based on tuition.”

     “Allura?” Shiro asked, worried that it was her pregnancy mind speaking. 

She shook her head though and said, “When is your birthday, Keith? I want to make sure you have a great seventeenth birthday too.”

Keith’s eyes widened in surprise at how much she was wanting to give him. This was definitely a pregnancy brain mood swing. If it wasn’t then what else could it be? Still though, Keith answered her, afraid of ruining the mood by telling her that her caring for him wasn’t real, “October twenty-third.”

     “Wait, your birthday is next week?” Lance squeaked out, looking at his phone to check the date. He confirmed his fear that Keith’s birthday really was next week before looking up at him and continuing to speak, “Why didn't you tell me?”

Keith shrugged and shook his head, “No one cared before about my birthday, I’m just used to not telling anyone,” he took the last bite of his food. “Plus, I keep forgetting it is October and not August of last year where my memories left off. I'm still fifteen in my mind!”

He stood up before anyone else could talk about his birthday, both him and Shiro knowing how much he hated his birthday. It was the time of year he was supposed to feel special but never did due to the fact that no one was ever around to make an orphan feel special. Him and Shiro had a few special moments on his birthdays, but he always preferred it on the downlow. 

Allura and Lance had no idea though, nor were they going to let Keith have a birthday without a party. 

Still though, Lance got up with Keith and they put their plates in the kitchen, complementing Allura on her cooking before retreating upstairs to Keith’s room with the excuse of needing to study. 

Lance was going to bring up how Keith should have told him about his birthday, but Keith cancelled his plans before he could even try to act upon them by shutting the door and pushing Lance onto his bed. He climbed up on the bed and hovered over Lance before leaning down and placing a kiss on his lips.

Though he still wanted to talk about Keith’s birthday, Lance kissed back. 

Keith pulled away with a smile and murmured out close to lance’s ear, “Shiro was glaring at you for the first half of dinner… Is there a reason he hates you so much?”

     “He hates me?” Lance awkwardly laughed, looking off to the side as he placed his hands on Keith’s hips, desperately trying to distract him from that topic. 

Keith didn’t budge though, grinning at his seemingly spot-on accusation before kissing Lance’s neck and muttering, “He probably hates you for the car crash. He told me that was the reason, but I thought there was something more. Did he possibly know about us dating?”

    “Did he?” Lance squeaked out, moaning when Keith nibbled on his collarbone. Keith harshly slapped his hand over his mouth so Lance couldn’t moan so loudly and attract Shiro to their room. 

Keith pressed himself upwards again to kiss Lance’s lips, wrapping his arms around the boy underneath him as he mumbled out a soft, “He probably didn’t if he let us go up to my room… No way would Shiro ever let me and a possible love interest be alone in the same room together. Especially a boy.”

     “Especially a boy?” Lance asked, kissing back and cupping his hands around Keith’s cheek, slowly brushing his fingers back into his hair. 

Keith nodded and hugged Lance, breaking away from the kiss to press his nose into Lance’s shoulder, wishing he didn’t say anything about it. He still explained to Lance what he meant by it though, finding it better to have him know than to leave him wondering, “Shiro saw how the other boys treated me at the home… He saw them picking on me when they thought he wasn’t looking and became over-protective after that. This new side of him where he wants to know where I am, what I’m doing, and who I am with all the time though is an extreme side of him I have never seen before. It makes me wonder if I told him what the boys did after he left.”

Lance looked down, considering how understandable it was for Shiro to be worried about how he treated Keith. Keith was Shiro’s little brother. He was his only family. Of course it was fair for him to try his best to keep him safe…. 

Keith sighed and leaned back away from Lance, smiling and looking off to the side, “Enough about Shiro though. I need to tell you about Lotor.”

Lance’s eyes widened at the name, a new feeling of fear running through him, “What did he say in the bathroom? He threatened you didn’t he?”

     “Actually it was more like he threatened you,” Keith explained, clenching his teeth together as he prepared himself for a possible sudden outburst by Lance. 

None came though. Lance wasn’t like the other boys in his past home. Lance stayed calm though he was visibly shaken by the statement. Keith unclenched his whole body and tilted his head in both a relief and a confusion as Lance spoke, “He has some kind of evidence that I punched you, doesn’t he?”

Keith looked down and nodded his head, biting his lip, “And he has a picture of us kissing… He said if I didn’t do what he wanted, he would let that picture out.”

     “So what?” Lance whispered out harshly, “Don’t do anything he asks!”

     “But what about your parents?” Keith asked, tilting his head. “You don’t want them to find out about us or you liking guys. I see that. I don’t want you to have to tell your parents or anyone else when I can make sure it stays a secret by just doing what he wants.”

Lance sat up and shook his head, clenching his hands into fists, “He’s going to ask you to do stuff like have sex with him,” he looked into Keith's eyes so intensely one could mistake his stare for a glare, “Or he is going to rape or hurt you and tell you that you can’t tell anyone else, because he has this picture as a leverage over you!”

     “It’s not that deep,” Keith tried to say, but Lance cut him off. 

     “I would rather have my parents kick me out of the house then have you do terrible things for my own sake,” Lance muttered out, getting out of bed. 

Keith stood up as well, “If I don’t do anything then your parents will find out!”

     “Then let them,” Lance sighed, looking down. “I’m sure they won’t disown me. They will be disappointed, but I can deal with it. It is better than… than you being hurt, ok?”

Both didn’t want the opposite outcome. Lance didn’t want Keith to pay the price of keeping their relationship a secret, and Keith didn’t want Lance to pay the price of their relationship being revealed to everyone. It was sadly a one way street in both directions though both knew that one outcome was a little bit more bearable. 

Lance placed his hands on Keith’s waist and pulled him close, kissing his forehead as he muttered out softly, “Let’s go to bed. He’s not worth worrying over, because he doesn’t have any power over us anymore. You have Shiro, Allura, me, Hunk, and Pidge to protect you from anything he tries to pull, and those pictures he has of us mean nothing to me except an excuse to come out to my parents which was long overdue anyways.”

     “Ok,” Keith tried to agree though he was still worried. 

Lance managed to coax Keith into fully calming down, soon getting undressed into just their boxers before they got back into bed and cuddled each other until they fell asleep. Tomorrow was Friday, so they had one more day until the weekend that would free them of Lotor for at least a few days. Maybe all of their problems would be gone by Monday too if they were lucky.

The next few days went by quietly with Lotor only walking up to Keith once before realizing that Keith wasn’t going to do what he wanted anymore. Lotor tried to seem unphased by it, but it was still obvious that he now wanted to rue both of the boys for treated him like he didn’t have the power he had. 

That was when the expected happened. 

Lance looked down at his phone, seeing a series of texts from his parents. It was lunch time on Wednesday and Lotor had officially posted the picture of Keith and Lance kissing on the internet, the photo being passed on until it eventually got to his parents. There was no way he could lie about who was in that photo either, because it was a clear image of both his and Keith’s face. 

Keith looked down at Lance’s phone to see the texts he had gotten from his parents in the past hour. 

     Mama: ‘Can you explain this picture going around of you and Keith kissing?’

     Mama: ‘Seriously, Lance. This is scaring me…’

     Mama: ‘Are you gay? I am telling your father about this right now’

     Mama: ‘Come home as soon as practice if over tonight. We are going to talk’

     Papa: ‘I cannot believe this.’

Lance bit his lip and turned off his phone, shoving it into his bag as he muttered out, “Well this doesn’t exactly surprise me how they reacted.”

     “Should you just not go home tonight then? You can stay at my house,” Keith tried, but Lance shook his head and placed his hands on his cheeks to keep himself from freaking out too much. 

     “I need to get this over with and just come clean to them,” he closed his eyes. “They will be disappointed, but I’m sure they won’t overreact or do anything too crazy. I’ll be fine. This is a good thing.”

     “I’ll come out too,” Keith assured Lance, pressing his hand on his back and rubbing it lightly. “We can come out at the same time, and then you can call my home phone and we can talk about how it went! I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Lance smiled and kissed Keith’s cheek, his hands trembling as he brought them up to his face, “I’m sure it will be.”

Keith went home directly after school when Shiro picked him up, and Lance stayed for practice, for once hoping it never ended so he didn’t have to go home. He didn’t text his parents back, but he knew they were going to be waiting for him in the living room regardless, ready to have a talk about his sexuality and how his morals needed to change. He didn’t want to hear them say these things, but he needed to live through at least one discussion before he could finally feel better about who he was. Maybe they would learn to accept him as well after hearing his side of the situation.

Hunk gave him a ride home, stopping by the ice cream shop and giving him three scoops on the house since he was about to do something that took guts and some comfort food. 

     “No matter what happens, just know that you are my best friend, and my family loves your bisexual self like their own kid. I’m sure your parents will be the same way,” Hunk tried to reassure Lance as they started to drive to his house. 

Lance was taking in spoonful after spoonful of ice cream, absent-mindedly eating it all without even tasting it because he was so lost in thought on how he was going to talk to his parents. It was a scary thing to come out to his Catholic parents. It was a scary thing to come out in general. 

When they arrived to his house, Lance bit his lip and rested his head on the back of his seat, closing his eyes and muttering out, “This is so stressful…”

     “It’s understandable,” Hunk admitted, looking to Lance with a half-smile. “But your parents will understand. I’ve known them my whole life and I can’t imagine them hating you for something you can’t control! You will be fine, ok?”

Lance smiled and nodded his head, “You are right… They may be against it, but I am still their son, right? They always tell me they love me unconditionally, and it counts now too!”

     “That’s right!” Hunk cheered, patting Lance’s back with his hand as Lance started to get out of the truck. “Call me and tell me everything when it is over. I’m baking bisexual flag colored cookies tomorrow just for you buddy!”

     “Thanks Hunk,” Lance laughed, giving him a wave and closing the door. 

He then turned to his house that seemed like the gates of Hell to him at the moment. He took a deep breath. Now it was time to meet the rulers of it. 

~(***)~

Keith looked to the clock and saw that Lance should have gotten home from soccer practice an hour ago. That meant that he probably talked or was still talking with his parents about coming out. Keith’s heart leapt in his chest when he was reminded of his promise to come out as well. 

He wasn’t all too scared about Shiro disowning him or anything like that because Shiro had never judged anyone for anything. Keith didn’t really know Allura as well, but he was sure she was the same way if Shiro loved her so much. 

When he heard the front door open and close, signalling that Shiro was home, Keith got up quickly and ran to Allura’s office area, knocking on her door as he quickly said, “Hey could you maybe coming to the living room for a few minutes? I have something that I want to tell you and Shiro.”

She seemed surprised, her eyebrows giving away the fact that she was worried even though she tried to act calm and say, “Of course, yeah… Is everything ok?”

Keith smiled and nodded his head, “I think so.”

He then disappeared to go tell Shiro about the family meeting, catching him in the kitchen as he yelled out enthusiastically, “Hey, I’m calling for a family meeting in the living room! Drop that banana and come listen to what I have to say.”

Shiro looked down at the banana he was peeling and then back up at Keith, “Can I maybe keep my banana during this family meeting? I’m hungry…”

Keith rolled his eyes and huffed, “Fine. Just hurry up ‘cause I need to call Lance after this!”

He then ran back into the living room where Allura was now sitting, holding her stomach even though there was no visible baby bump yet. Keith sat on the table in front of the couch and touched her belly without asking, smiling and rubbing it as he mused, “I never did what I’m about to do before. I’m so nervous and excited at the same time.”

     “I’m so excited to find out what you have to say,” she grinned, welcoming him rubbing her belly. 

It surprised her that Keith was so excited about the pregnancy now, but she was happy he was already so close and excited to his soon-to-be younger sibling. She just hoped things stayed as smoothly as they were now. After Shiro lied to Keith about him being adopted, they made it a priority to adopt Keith without him knowing that he hadn’t already been adopted in the first place. She had no idea how they were going to pull it off, but she had her hopes up. 

Keith removed his hand from Allura’s stomach and looked up when Shiro entered the room, jumping a bit as he gestured for Shiro to sit down on the couch as he said, “Ok, ok. So since you guys adopted me and I’m officially part of your family, I decided to take advantage of it and tell you guys something that would otherwise probably get me sent away.”

     “You killed someone,” Shiro let out a guess as a joke, having a feeling he knew what Keith was going to say though. He was fully prepared to accept whatever Keith had to say. 

Keith laughed at his guess and shook his head, “Not that I know of,” he looked down and folded his hands together, “I’m… Oh geez, how do I say this?” He laughed nervously under his breath and spread his arms out wide with his palms open for emphasis, blurting out his deep secret, “I’m gay! There, I said it. I’m gay.”

He wavered on top of the table for a second, fear suddenly washing through him in one hot wave. He tried to find out what Shiro and Allura were thinking through their expressions, but he didn’t get a chance before Shiro suddenly leaned forward and brought him into a hug, “Thank you so much for trusting us both enough to tell us this."

Keith was surprised by Shiro’s reaction and hesitated to hug him back, soon slowly wrapping his arms around him as he replied to him, “So you aren’t mad?”

     “Mad?” Allura joined in, placing her hand on Keith’s back reassuringly with a smile, “How could we be mad? I’m happy we got to learn something new about you, actually. I know you don’t know me as well as Shiro, but I really appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me as well.”

     “Well we are a family now,” Keith smiled, placing his hand on Allura’s belly again. “All four of us… Is the baby allowed to know I am gay?”

Allura laughed a little and nodded her head, “Of course! I want it to know everything about you!”

Keith grinned and hugged both Allura and Shiro, pulling them into the group hug with both of his arms as he exclaimed, “This is great! I don’t even know why I was worried about how you would react! You guys are the best.”

Shiro and Allura laughed, hugging him back and appreciating the moment that they were getting to have with Keith as a family. It made Shiro thankful for Keith losing his memories, and he hoped even more now for those memories to never return. 

As soon as they pulled away from each other, there were a few hurried and hard knocks on the front door, causing all of their heads to jerk to the direction of the sound. 

     “Who on Earth is knocking so much?” Allura asked, placing her hand on her stomach protectively. 

     “I’ll get it,” Shiro muttered, getting up and walking over to the door. 

Keith decided to follow him, placing his hand on the handle of his pocket knife he always carried around in his pocket just in case. He hid a few steps behind Shiro, but still peaked over his shoulder to see who was at the door, ready to attack the person if it was Lotor. 

The knocking didn’t stop until Shiro opened the door and stood in the doorway, asking, “Who is-! ...What?”

     “Who is it?” Keith asked, trying to see past Shiro at whoever was behind the door. 

     “Lance?” Shiro asked, surprising Keith. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he finally heard Lance’s voice, though it was just him crying as he begged Shiro, “I had nowhere else to go… Can I please stay here tonight? My parents… My parents-!”

He broke out into a sob and Shiro quickly ushered him into the house, finally letting Keith see Lance. When Keith saw the black eye and the tears streaming down Lance's cheeks, he had a feeling he knew what went down before Lance got there. 

He quickly put his knife away and rushed over to Lance, hugging him and whispering to him, “What happened? Did your dad-!”

     “I don’t want to talk about it,” Lance interrupted him, sniffling and hugging him tightly. “He just… He just got so mad, and- and he told me never to come back! I had nowhere else to go but you.”

Keith held Lance’s hand and turned to Shiro, “Shiro…”

Shiro put his hand up and nodded his head, “I heard. Let me talk to Allura while you two stay in the kitchen.”

     “Ok…” Keith muttered out, pulling Lance into the kitchen as Shiro walked past them to talk to Allura. 

Keith hugged Lance again and whispered reassuring words into his ear until he stopped crying. After a few minutes, Shiro walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table with them, “Lance, you can stay for as long as you need. You don’t have to answer me, but who did this to you and why?”

Lance looked down, hands trembling as he muttered out, “I came out to my parents today… My dad got mad, but please don’t tell anyone! This is the first time he ever hit me, so I’m sure it was an accident.”

     “A hit like that is hard to call an accident,” Shiro muttered, looking closer at Lance’s black eye and busted lip that was bleeding a bit. He got up and walked over to the medicine cabinet, pulling out a first aid kit as he continued to speak, “This might be risking my job by keeping you here, but I’m sure your dad will be careful not to let this out on how he treated you.”

     “This town turns blind eyes,” Lance sniffled, taking the neosporin and small bandaid Shiro handed him for his lip. “He’ll get over it soon. I just caught him at a bad time.”

     “Are you sure?” Keith asked, biting his lip. “I would never forgive him if I were you.”

     “Keith…” Shiro warned, eyeing Keith cautiously. He sighed and turned back to Lance with a genuine look in his expression, “I’m sure your dad will come around very soon. And how did your mom react?”

Lance shrugged, frowning, “She was disappointed and frustrated, but at least she didn’t hit me.”

     “Did she want you to leave as well?” Shiro asked, accidentally pressing into his detective mode. 

Lance kept his gaze to the ground, shrugging and staying quiet, trying everything in his power not to cry again. 

Shiro realized that this was getting too hard for Lance, so he backed off a bit, “You and Keith can go upstairs and talk or hang out until dinner is ready. I think we have an extra toothbrush in the guest room and you can share Keith’s clothes for now. Things will all be fine, ok?”

     “Ok,” Lance tried to smile, nodding his head. 

Keith helped him up, “Let’s go to my room. Allura bought a bunch of ice cream, so we can steal one of the tubs and watch some YouTube videos to get your mind off it all,” he ushered Lance up the stairs and kissed his cheek, “No one will harm you with Shiro and me here to protect you. And Allura’s stronger than you think! I’m sure their kid is going to be so strong and cool with both of their traits combined.”

Lance smiled and leaned against Keith, “You have such a good family here… Did you tell Shiro you were gay?”

     “A few minutes before you came over,” Keith closed the door to his room and walked over to his dresser to pull out pajamas for Lance to use. “They both reacted really well. I wasn’t surprised, but it just made me really happy that I finally have a family that supports me.” He bit his lip when he realized what he said, and he looked down, muttering out, “I shouldn’t have said that, sorry.”

     “No, I’m happy for you, Keith,” Lance frowned and placed his hands on Keith’s shoulders, requesting to stare into his eyes as he continued. “You have had a tough life. You have every right to be happy about having Shiro and Allura as your family, and should never be sorry for talking about them. My parents may have screwed up big time for what happened today, but I know deep down they still love me. Plus, my older siblings will hear about this soon, and they will talk sense into my parents. Everything will work out for me."

     “I know, but-!” Keith started to speak, but Lance took the folded pajamas in his hands and interrupted him before he could finish his protest. 

     “But I will be the unofficial foster kid tonight. We both get to see how the other half lives I guess, though I’m only getting barely a taste of it, I know,” Lance smiled and kissed Keith’s cheek. “I’m still not regretting coming out.”

Keith’s eyes widened and he kissed Lance back, though this time it was on the lips. He grabbed Lance’s shirt and pulled him closer, moving both of his hands to his hips. He broke away after a few seconds and stared into Lance’s eyes, “I love you so much. No matter what happens, just know that will always be on your side, ok?”

     “Same goes for you,” Lance smiled, backing up in order to make room for himself to change into the pajamas and out of his practice clothes. 

The two boys were called down to dinner an hour later and they all ate together like they did last week though there was no tension between Lance and Shiro. How could Shiro treat Lance like the enemy after what happened to him? He felt the need to protect Lance now. As long as Lance was making Keith happy, there was no reason to do anything except for accept him and make sure he stayed safe as well. 

After dinner, Shiro made both Keith and Lance pledge that they wouldn’t get up to any funny business while sleeping in the same room together. Though they were embarrassed by the fact that Shiro was even thinking about that kind of stuff, they agreed to stay quiet and PG. 

Shiro sent Keith upstairs to take a shower and told Lance to stay behind with him and Allura, giving the excuse to Keith that they were going to talk about what size he was so they could get clothes for him tomorrow. 

Keith seemed to believe the excuse and left, but when he was gone, Shiro and Allura revealed to Lance the true meaning behind their secret meeting. 

     “So Keith’s birthday is in two days and you came over at the perfect time,” Allura started, grinning and leaning forward in excitement. “Now you don’t have to help if you don’t want to, but we want to throw a little surprise party, nothing too big, but does Keith have other friends?”

Lance grinned at the idea of a surprise party and nodded his head, “Yeah! Keith is also really good friends with Hunk and Katie, and they would love to help too. He’s also friends with a few others that I could invite.”

     “Could you? That’d be great,” Allura smiled. “This is all so sudden, but we just want to make his first birthday with us special.”

     “I’m sure it will be,” Lance smiled, excited to help plan a surprise party for Keith. 

They discussed the plans a bit more and made a list of six people Lance needed to invite tomorrow at school including himself, Hunk, and Katie. Lance knew that Keith was comfortable around all six people that he was inviting and they all knew each other as well, so no one would feel awkward.

He then went off to bed where Keith already was sleeping, just his boxers on and his hair still wet. Lance laughed to himself and grabbed a shirt laying on the ground to use to wrap Keith’s hair up so he didn’t get sick. He then got into bed and layed next to Keith, kissing his cheek and wrapping himself up in the covers. Before he fell asleep after a long and exhausting day, he softly whispered to the boy sleeping next to him, “I don’t know where I’d be if you never showed up to this town…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for next chapter!
> 
> Wow it's been awhile I think. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry it is a bit rushed, but I got distracted with a new fic that is getting a lot of attention right now if you guys want to check it out (after you comment) it is called 'The War Rages On'. It is a Klance Mpreg fic about them dealing with several miscarriages and trying again despite past failures. I just wanted to try something new, so I did something I never thought I'd write. 
> 
> Have a nice week!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Comment what you thought and for the next one to be uploaded!


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